The Villa Arctic AS Jarfjord in Norway is the first salmon farm to be awarded Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification. Products from the farm bearing the ASC logo will hit the market next week.
Villa Organic, the parent company of Villa Arcitic was one of the stakeholders involved in developing the ASC salmon standard.
“This is a crucial first step for the salmon aquaculture industry and we congratulate Villa Arctic AS for their great effort in achieving ASC certification for Jarfjord Farm,” said Chris Ninnes, ASC CEO. “Salmon is one of the most popular species and in prime demand — both companies and consumers will benefit from Villa’s efforts in demonstrating environmental and social responsibility.”
Villa Organic has two main owners, Salmar and Lerøy Seafood Group. The ASC certified salmon will be sold through these companies. Villa Arctic’s total production of salmon was approximately 12,000 tons in 2013 and is mainly located in Finnmark, Norway.
Lerøy has achieved ASC chain of custody for its sales, distribution and value added processing chain, also with smoking, for ASC certified salmon and is now able to offer the market a wide variety of ASC certified salmon products.
The ASC certified salmon will be sold to customers in Japan, the United States and Europe. One of their customers, IKEA, has decided to only serve and sell salmon from ASC certified farms in their stores by the end of August 2015. Thanks to the recent certification of the Lerøy farms, IKEA will start to offer salmon from the ASC certified farms in this year.
As a member of the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI), Lerøy is committed to meeting the ASC salmon standard by 2020. There are 15 member companies in GSI that represent approximately 70 percent of the global salmon industry.
