Sustainable seafood sourcing policies
Once you’ve made a commitment to sourcing sustainable seafood, it’s important to state this publicly.
The best way to let your customers and suppliers know that you’re a responsible business is through a publicly available seafood sourcing policy.
You can download our simple template below. You just need to fine tune the details, add your logo and upload it to your website.
Levels
At the very minimum, we recommend businesses remove red-rated seafood and source seafood rated 1-4 on the Good Fish Guide. Ideally, pair this with a time bound commitment to source seafood rated 1-3.
Ratings
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certifies 18% of the wild caught fish as sustainable. While this is very useful for businesses, it’s important we understand how the other 82% of seafood shapes up. That’s why we developed the Good Fish Guide.
However, with all the fisheries and farms on the planet, there will invariably be sources that we don’t rate. Normally this is because they aren’t commercially valuable enough for the UK market.
If it’s not certified and not featured on the Good Fish Guide, get in touch. If you want a custom rating, we can do that for you (for a fee).
Certified seafood
If you want to sell MSC certified seafood, you’ll need to get MSC chain of custody. It’s not as complicated as it sounds and they have lots of resources to help you on this journey.
Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs)
FIPs are used by the fishing industry to improve a certain fishery. Stakeholders (fishers, wholesalers, retailers and NGOs) get together and agree a plan to improve the sustainability of the fishery over time. They’re an important tool, but can have limited results. Often seafood sources from FIPs will score a 4.5 on the Good Fish Guide. If you have a commitment to sourcing seafood that scores better than this, but are keen to support or engage in FIPs, you should include this in your sourcing policy.