The board of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute approved a USD 21.3 million budget on May 15 for the fiscal year starting 1 July.
It also indicated plans to release, by 18 May, a definitive statement reconfirming the decision of producers accounting for most of the state’s annual salmon harvest that they have no intentions to continue as clients of the Marine Stewardship Council eco-label after the current certification expires this October.
The statement is intended to squelch rumors — circulating mainly in Germany and other European markets — that the April announcement that the Seattle-based Purse Seine Vessel Owners Association would take over as the MSC’s client for its sustainability certification of the Alaska salmon fishery would renew processors’ use of the label.
“I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” said Ray Riutta, ASMI executive director, after the board meeting.
Eight processors, handling upwards of 75 percent of the annual Alaska salmon harvest, have declared their support for ASMI’s responsible fisheries management, or RFM, certification program, grounded in the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s code of conduct for responsible fisheries.
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