For Dutch retailer and wholesaler Fishes, sustainable seafood is a passion. The company’s involvement with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) dates back to 2002. Over the past seven years, Fishes has helped heighten the sustainable fisheries program’s visibility in the Netherlands and throughout Europe.
SeafoodSource recently spoke to Andrew Bassford, Fishes’ director of operations, to find out more about the company’s burgeoning business and its drive to deliver more seafood species from certified fisheries.
Partos: When did you obtain the MSC eco-label?
Bassford: In 2007, Fishes became the first store on mainland Europe to obtain the MSC’s chain-of-custody standard for seafood traceability. This allows Fishes to display the MSC logo at its fresh fish counters.
Tell me more about your seafood product range and the role sustainability plays in your sourcing policy?
We see the potential in the MSC, which is receiving increasing support from retailers. For the retailer, MSC gives them the ability to comfortably sell their sustainable fish products to the consumer.
At the fish counters in our shops, around 30 percent of the fish is MSC certified. But in the retail range (frozen, canned and smoked) 100 percent is MSC certified. By 2010, we want to see MSC-certified products representing more than 50 percent of the range [at our fish counters]. Further, those products that are not certified by MSC in our range are all green-listed. The Fishes frozen range includes Thai fish cakes, salmon burgers and natural fillets, such as cod, and for our smoked products we work with different producers under the Fishes brand.
Is Fishes’ wholesale arm involved in supporting future sustainable fisheries?
We are in the process of setting up a new foundation called The Source, scheduled to start at the beginning of 2010. The Source is a foundation aimed at supporting and developing sustainable fisheries, aquaculture and fair trade worldwide. The objective is to create sustainable use of natural resources to maintain healthy oceans [and to] minimize overfishing and other adverse effects related to the fishing and aquaculture industry.
