The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) was given the seriola and cobia standard from the Seriola and Cobia Aquaculture Dialogue last week. The standard joins others owned by the ASC, including standards for tilapia, pangasius, salmon, shrimp, trout, abalone and bivalves.
“I’m delighted this standard has been handed over to ASC, it has been long awaited,” said Bas Geerts, standards director at the ASC. “It is thanks to the remarkable commitment of the 100s of people who put in so many hours over the last few years to the multi-stakeholder dialogues that we have such a robust standard for responsible seriola and cobia farming. Our next step is to develop the audit manual and then we are ready for pilot testing.”
The ASC has seen an uptick in the use of ASC-certified products in the market. Next steps for the standard includes the development of an audit manual and pilot testing. The ASC will coordinate the development of an audit manual and will also launch pilot farm audits. Interest in pilot testing spans farms from Japan, Brazil and Mexico.
After audits are finished, the results will be used to create the final version of an audit manual. The ASC is planning that the standard and audit manual will be ready for launch in the last quarter of 2015.
