MarinTrust and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in an attempt to streamline the certification processes between both organizations.
The agreement between MarinTrust, a London, U.K.-based certification program working to improve sourcing and traceability across global marine ingredient production, and the MSC is intended to improve how marine ingredient producers engage with one another, reducing duplicative tasks within both certification schemes and aligning standards across the sector.
“This collaboration reflects both organizations’ shared commitment to improving fisheries management and addressing the increasing demand for responsible marine ingredients,” MarinTrust Executive Chair Libby Woodhatch said. “This MoU aims to clarify and recognize that both programs are complementary yet different. The complementarity enables efficiencies to be designed and offered to seafood supply chain actors.”
Though the MSC covers fisheries and processors and MarinTrust focuses on marine ingredient producers, there are areas where the two schemes overlap; in that area is where better efficiency is needed, according to MarinTrust.
“Although the unit of certification under the MarinTrust Factory Standard is the marine ingredient production facility, the assessment of species in a fishery is a prerequisite,” MarinTrust said in a release. “It is necessary to provide assurance for the responsible sourcing of raw materials used for the production of marine ingredients.”
Companies seeking certifications from both organizations will now have fewer hoops to jump through and, therefore, fewer costs to pay in the process, MarinTrust outlined.
“If raw material originates from an MSC-certified fishery and falls within the MarinTrust certification scope, with a valid MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certificate, it is automatically recognized. No extra steps are needed,” MarinTrust said. “For MSC-certified fisheries which lack a valid MSC CoC certificate, MarinTrust steps in, conducting verification to ensure the material is MarinTrust-compliant. If it passes, the material is recognized.”
MarinTrust added that when none of the above criteria are met, its third-party certification body undertakes MarinTrust’s rigorous fishery or byproduct assessment.
“The core of this MoU is to recognize that both programs share an interest in positioning robust assurance – based on credible third-party certification – as the preferable tool for the marine ingredients industry to demonstrate responsible sourcing,” MSC Chief Program Officer Nicolas Guichoux said.