Apex Frozen Foods Pvt. Ltd. has become India’s fourth group in just over a month’s time to earn four-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) status for shrimp, the highest achievement available within the BAP program.
All processing plants, farms, hatcheries and feed mills from which Apex Frozen Foods sources have been vetted as up to BAP standard. That includes the recently BAP-certified Avanti Feeds Ltd. feed mill, the NSR Aqua Farms Pvt. Ltd.
“We are committed to sustainability in aquaculture, and it is our goal to produce quality seafood by implementing and advocating environmentally and socially responsible practices,” said Apex Frozen Foods in a statement. “We aim to produce all of our product as BAP certified by implementing these sustainable practices in all of our future projects. We appreciate the efforts of our farming team and thank BAP for its support and guidance.”
By sometime next year, the group hopes to certify an additional 500 acres of ponds. If it is successful, a majority of the shrimp sold by Apex Frozen Foods would officially originate from BAP-approved farms.
As mentioned, the group joins three others in India who have sought and achieved BAP’s most prestigious accolade: Penver Products,
This push toward sustainability certification by India’s seafood groups speaks to a trend in the industry just starting to take shape, wherein integrated networks of companies challenge and rework the concept of one vertically integrated supplier.
As Jeff Sedacca, president of National Fish & Seafood’s shrimp and aquaculture division, told SeafoodSource’s Senior Editor James Wright last month: “We’re getting away from being seafood traders and going toward being integrated parts of a supply chain.”
National Fish & Seafood contracts with shrimp farmers by way of
