The British Ports Association (BPA) and Seafish are developing a new voluntary standard that aims to provide greater assurances to seafood traders that all participating U.K. fishing ports and auctions are adhering to best practice and maintaining product quality.
If adopted, the Responsible Fishing Port Standard will also provide these facilities with consistent guidance on the regulatory and environmental issues that affect the broader seafood industry and improve standards.
Chief Executive of Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises, Martyn Boyers, who chairs the BPA’s Fishing Ports Group, believes the new standard would improve transparency and raise standards at the quayside, which would bring multiple benefits to the seafood supply chain. At the same time, it would complement Seafish’s Responsible Fishing Scheme (RFS), which is currently undergoing a comprehensive upgrade to international ISO standards and to also include chain of custody for quality and traceability.
“We were quite enthusiastic about the RFS, but it struck us that the chain of custody stopped the moment the vessel landed at port and that if it was going to be a credible, legitimate scheme it should continue through the supply chain,” said Boyers. “We recognized the drive by supermarkets to look for accreditation and traceability and saw the ports as being a natural step in the chain of custody, providing people with assurances about where the fish was from.”
BPA also hopes the standard will deliver greater consistency across a raft of areas, including weighing, labeling and hygiene, bringing “commonality” to “very individual” fishing ports, he said.
This individuality has intensified in recent years with wave after wave of legislation – both environmental and operational – that each port has had to incorporate into its business. To remain operational, many have had to interpret these rules on a local basis, which has resulted in inconsistencies across the port structure, whereby many ports are conducting what are very similar operations in quite dissimilar ways.
While no one was doing anything wrong necessarily, the inconsistency in how the legislation was being enforced was worrying the BPA.
“The BPA has a number of leading fish landing ports – such as Grimsby, Peterhead and Brixham – and we thought it was reasonable to develop a scheme that would overcome these challenges by creating an independent benchmark that all ports and auctions could aspire to.
“We believe the standard has got a lot of merit and stands up to scrutiny. The principle of it has been agreed and widely accepted. It’s not going to be that easy to implement, but we believe we can deliver it,” said Boyers.
Tom Pickerell, technical director at Seafish, said the BPA is looking to introduce a level of standardization that exceeds the legal minimum.
“It doesn’t just want some interpretation of the laws as they stand; what it wants to demonstrate is that the ports are operating beyond the law – that they are being responsible and working in ways that are actually beneficial and adding credibility to the bigger supply chain,” said Pickerell.
“This standard would give assurances to the supply chain about quality and validate that the fish is being treated as food. We’re not saying that this isn’t the case at the moment, but this brings consistency and potentially raises standards. It would improve the profile, image and service provision of U.K. fishing ports and bring greater unification of the sector, which would in turn give them a stronger footing to discuss legislation implementation.”
Moving forward, Pickerell wants to ensure the port standard and the RFS remain closely tied as flesh is added to the bones of the fledgling standard.
“The port standard should provide the system for the fish landed by RFS vessels to go into the marketplace, ensuring the high quality and care that come with their best practice are not lost the moment those seafood products are landed quayside. We are still looking at the traceability and chain of custody, but this would be a lovely bridge between sea and land,” he said.
Work on the three-year Responsible Fishing Port Standard development program began on 1 April, while the new RFS is currently being piloted and ahead of its launch later this year.
