U.K. retail supplier Icelandic Seachill has unveiled a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) program that is intended to reinforce trust in the provenance of the company’s seafood products by demonstrating its commitment to three core areas: sustainability, ethics and authenticity.
The Grimsby company, which supplies seafood to the U.K. retail trade, announced the launch of its “Quality, Naturally” program at the World Seafood Congress (WSC) 2015.
Explaining the background to the program and why the decision was taken to redevelop Icelandic Seachill’s CSR strategy, Simon Smith, managing director of Icelandic Seachill said that the company gets involved in a huge number of organizations and initiatives and that in order to “do things properly,” it’s vital it stays focused.
“We’ve been very heavily involved in sustainability and ethics for many years, but it became clear that what we need to do has to be done in a structured way. Overarching what we have developed is trust – it fundamentally comes down to this – the trust of our customers and making sure that the trust that we have carefully built up over many years isn’t lost,” said Smith.
“Therefore, the CSR program we have developed is Quality, Naturally. Underpinning that are the three pillars of sustainability, ethics and authenticity.”
Smith also encouraged other members of the seafood supply chain to not adopt a “remedial” attitude toward CSR, whereby something has gone wrong and as a result something bad needs to be addressed.
“My appeal to the broader industry is not to take that approach. I think we can be far more constructive when we talk about what we have achieved. Of course we need to recognize where something has gone wrong, but let’s focus on where the successes are. Let’s fill the consumers with confidence so that they buy more fish and increasingly have it in their diets.
“Growing our reputation is a far more positive approach. Let’s talk the industry up,” he said.
