Scottish Sea Farms has been awarded Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification for its Summer Isles farms, the first time the company has achieved the accreditation.
The three farms, located to the north-west of mainland Scotland, have an average survival of 94.2% across the last three crops, an average harvest weight of 6kg, and 91.7% of all fish harvested graded as ‘superior’.
Fewer than 5% of salmon farms in Scotland are ASC certified. “[These] farms are considered the global elite in terms of performance,” said Scottish Sea Farms’ aquaculture technical lead for ASC certification, Anna Price.
Senior aquaculture technical manager Matthew James of LRQA Group, who carried out the audit, said that, “We were impressed both by the high level of compliance achieved at a first audit, and the knowledge and enthusiasm throughout their farming team.”
The farms also received an ‘excellent’ rating from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s CAS (compliance assessment scheme), which measures environmental performance, for the last two published years of 2018 and 2019.
Scottish Sea Farms has also achieved chain of custody certification of its processing and packing facilities at South Shian near Oban – confirmation that the necessary procedures are in place to ensure that any fish that carry the ASC logo are indeed from an ASC certified farm.
Work is now underway to achieve chain of custody certification for the company’s processing and packing facility in Scalloway. The next farm earmarked for certification is Lober Rock in Orkney.
