British Columbia ASC success for Grieg

GRIEG Seafood is celebrating achieving Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification for five of its Sunshine Coast salmon farms in British Columbia, making it only the second company in the world to be awarded this multi-site success.

More significantly, much of the audit work was carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic which presented real challenges for salmon producers.

Andreas Kvame, CEO of Grieg Seafood, which also has salmon farms on Shetland, said:

\’At Grieg Seafood, we work hard to reduce our environmental impact and improve fish welfare. We are proud of our team in British Columbia for the progress they are making, this time as one of the first companies in the world to achieve ASC’s multi-site certification.

\’It is important to Grieg to continue to advance in areas of sustainability and environmental accountability wherever we farm in the world, and attaining ASC certification at our farms is a step in that direction\’.

Rocky Boschman, Managing Director of Grieg Seafood BC said:

\’Across the board, our employees worked hard to get this multi-site certification, all while working around COVID-19 distancing protocols, and that’s incredible.” Despite that challenge, we are still on track to have all of our farms ASC certified by 2021.\’

The ASC is an international non-profit organisation that manages the world’s leading certification for aquaculture. Its standards are transparent, science-based and inclusive, and were developed in line with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

To achieve certification under the ASC Salmon Standard, farms are audited against 500 separate aspects of the site’s performance. These audits are repeated every two years to ensure that the site maintains the standard required. The company is now planning to achieve certification at more of its Canadian farms.

Mowi is currently the only other salmon company to gain multi-site certification