Regal Springs Tilapia farm Aquafinca in Honduras was the first aquaculture operation to be audited by the Institute for Marketecology (IMO) for compliance with the International Standards for Responsible Tilapia Aquaculture (ISRTA), which were completed last December by the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogue.
This was the first of a number of ‘pilot’ audits scheduled under an agreement between WWF and GlobalGap.
The audit was performed in the week of 20 September 2010, by auditors from the IMO, a worldwide operating certification organisation based in Switzerland that has been accredited for auditing against the GlobalGap aquaculture standards, as well as complying with the requirements for Certification Bodies (CBs) that want to audit against the ISRTA.
The positive outcome of this first audit results in an interim letter of compliance with the ISRTA standards, which was issued to Regal Springs by IMO.
“IMO has a very strong department of experts in the field of aquaculture and it was a logical and important step to proceed with these new environmental and social standards. We are pleased to announce that the audits carried out at Aquafinca, Regal Springs Tilapia, Honduras, were successful and the letter of compliance could be issued by IMO” said Dr Peter Schaumberger, the new chief executive of IMO.
Mike Picchietti, president/director of sales for Regal Springs added: “As a member of the Global Steering Committee of the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogue, I am very pleased that we have completed this first pilot audit with a positive result. We are planning for additional audits at other locations in the coming months.”
Jose Villalon, aquaculture programme Director of World Wildlife Fund which initiated and co-ordinated the Aquaculture Dialogues: “We are delighted that after many years of hard work by so many people involved in the process, the first tilapia farm has now been audited and was found compliant with the Aquaculture Dialogue standards, and congratulate Regal Springs, who have been highly involved in the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogue, with this great result.”
This is the first audit that took place under the agreement between WWF and GlobalGap in order to allow aquaculture operations to be audited against the standards developed by the Aquaculture Dialogues in the period before the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has fully set up its verification scheme.
The Aquaculture Dialogue standards are added on, in their entirety, to the GlobalGap standards.
In the past months, WWF and GlobalGap organised several training sessions for GlobalGap accredited CBs interested in also auditing farms against the ISRTA standards.
Under the WWF/GlobalGap agreement, auditors from CBs accredited by GlobalGap who have followed this training as well as SA8000 training can perform the combined audits.
On 15 September, the ASC announced its appointment of Accreditation Services International (ASI) as its international, independent accreditation body.
Only ASI accredited CBs will be allowed to issue ASC certificates to operations that are in compliance with the standards, and the certificate will allow them to use the ASC consumer-facing label which is expected to be launched by mid-2011.
Philip Smith, CEO of the ASC said Regal Springs’ compliancy is a good opportunity for the ASC to use the experience gathered in this and future audits of tilapia farms to be done by GlobalGap accredited CBs in the further development of the ASC accreditation and verification scheme.
“Once the ASC accreditation and certification scheme is in place, consideration will be given to ASC certification of this Regal Springs farm.”
