Marine ingredients certification bodies seek savings for customers

Marine ingredients certification organisations MarinTrust and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation.

The MoU aims to improve understanding of both programmes, reduce duplication, and cut costs for marine ingredient producers. Both organisations will explore opportunities for mutual recognition and alignment of their Standards.

MarinTrust executive chair Libby Woodhatch said the collaboration reflects both organisations’ shared commitment to improving fisheries management and addressing the increasing demand for responsible marine ingredients.

“This MoU aims to clarify and recognise that both programmes are complementary yet different. The complementarity enables efficiencies to be designed and offered to seafood supply chain actors.”

Nicolas Guichoux, chief programme officer at MSC, said: “The core of this MoU is to recognise that both programmes share an interest in positioning robust assurance – based on credible third-party certification – as the preferable tool for the marine ingredients industry to demonstrate responsible sourcing.”

Key differences

Although there is some duplication between the programmes, there are key differences, say the organisations.

MSC certification applies to all wild catch fisheries, while MarinTrust focuses specifically on marine ingredient producers.

MSC fisheries certification is available for fisheries, while processors, and traders in the seafood supply chain from vessels all the way through to ‘consumer ready production’, are certified through MSC Chain of Custody approval.

MarinTrust achieves a similar result in a different way. The unit of certification for its Factory Standard is the marine ingredients producing production facility. As a pre-requisite for an audit, a factory must demonstrate responsible sourcing, through sourcing raw material (whole fish and by-product) that is MarinTrust approved. The unit of certification for the MarinTrust Chain of Custody Standard is the marine ingredient processing or storage facility.

Scope

The two organisations also differ in scope. MSC’s Fisheries Standard covers target stock health, ecosystem impacts, and management, and its Chain of Custody covers segregation-based traceability in the supply chain. MarinTrust covers responsible sourcing and production, as well as traceability of marine ingredients. As a prerequisite to an audit and MarinTrust certification, the raw materials must be approved.

MarinTrust began life as IFFO RS, which developed the global standard for Responsible Sourcing (RS) of Fishmeal and Fish Oil as an independent third-party certification and operated within marine ingredients organisation IFFO until if became financially independent in 2015.

The following year IFFO RS signed an MoU with the MSC, in which both standards agree to provide clarity on their respective scheme and highlight the fields where they complement each other.

75% target

In 2019-20, IFFO RS rebranded as MarinTrust, and by 2021, around half of all fishmeal and fish oil ingredients were certified against the MarinTrust Standards. Its 2025 objective is to have 75% of global combined marine ingredient production certified, in application, assessment or in an Improver Programme which helps a company increase standards to certification level.

MarinTrust is broadening its scope on social issues to cover crew welfare standards on vessels, as well as concentrating on growing the improver programme and encouraging more fisheries to enter FIPs (Fishery Improvement Projects).