The Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) third-party certification programme has grown by more than 15 per cent in 2019, ending the year with 2,681 BAP-certified facilities in 39 countries.
Administered by the Global Aquaculture Alliance, BAP is a comprehensive third-party aquaculture certification programme, with standards encompassing environmental responsibility, social responsibility, food safety, animal health and welfare, and traceability.
Of the 2,681 BAP-certified facilities representing 33 seafood species, 1,833 are farms, 388 are processing plants, 49 are re-processors, 279 are hatcheries and 132 are feed mills.
The farms account for more than 2 million tonnes of annual production, a 35.5% increase from a year ago. Shrimp is number one, with 852 BAP-certified farms accounting for more than 447,000 tonnes of annual production. Salmon, steelhead and trout are next at 410 BAP-certified active farms and more than 1 million tonnes of annual production.
Tilapia follows at 147 BAP-certified farms and more than 285,000 tonnes of annual production. Additionally, there are now 257 companies qualified to offer four-star BAP seafood, meaning that the product originated from a BAP-certified processing plant, farm, hatchery and feed mill.
The BAP programme achieved a lot of firsts again last year, including the world’s first sea cucumber producer, the world’s first recirculating aquaculture system coho salmon farm, Chile’s first salmon producer to earn BAP certification under the two-year BAP group audit and Sri Lanka’s first BAP-certified producer.
