Tilapia producer Regal Springs has become a member of the Blue Food Partnership’s multi-stakeholder Sustainable Aquaculture Working Group.
Led by the World Economic Forum’s Friends of Ocean Action platform, the initiative aims to harness the potential of sustainable aquaculture to help meet the nutritional needs of a fast-growing population in ways that fight climate change and work towards zero hunger.
“Our tilapia are at the corner stone of world food security,” Regal Springs CEO Alois Hofbauer said. “By farming responsibly, we add precious protein to world food supplies helping to preserve threated ocean fish stocks. With wild stocks in some regions fished near to capacity, aquaculture will contribute most of the additional fish produced and consumed in the future.”
Blue Food Partnership seeks to catalyze science-based actions toward sustainable, healthy, nutritious, and affordable blue food value chains, with its members collaborating to build the sustainability of blue food by engaging in thought leadership, working groups, and public activities to elevate the role of sustainable blue food in broader food systems transformation.
The partnership comprises stakeholders from the private sector, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, scientists, and governments. It is informed by the Ocean Panel’s 2030 ocean food priority areas and the scientific findings of the Blue Food Assessment, which seeks to better understand the role of blue food in global food systems and to support decision-makers in evaluating the opportunities and trade-offs in implementing solutions.
“By scaling up sustainable aquaculture, Regal Springs can help what we define as the ‘Blue Food Movement’ to accelerate the food systems transformation we need for people and planet, while stimulating new avenues for economic growth and jobs for millions of people worldwide,” Hofbauer said.
Earlier this month, Regal Springs’ Lake Toba tilapia farm in Sumatra, Indonesia, celebrated the 10-year anniversary of being the first fish farm in the world to earn Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification.
The farm is still ASC certified, along with more of the company’s tilapia farming sites in Honduras and Mexico.
