Some 2.38 million tonnes of the global tuna catch is now certified to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard for sustainable fishing, according to the international non-profit organisation’s latest quarterly tuna update.
The MSC-certified volume represents 47% of the global wild commercial tuna harvest. As a result, the number of brands selling tuna with the MSC label now totals 430, with 202 selling skipjack, 106 selling yellowfin and 122 selling albacore.
A further 11% of the global volume, or 557,110 tonnes, is currently in assessment to the standard, and 31% (1.56 million tonnes) is in some form of fisheries improvement programme (FIP).
Meanwhile, MSC has also verified that tuna is the number one wild seafood consumed in the United States.
In a new market focus, it states that of the 8.7kg of seafood consumed by Americans, canned tuna accounted for 1kg. The product was only eclipsed by shrimp (2.13kg per capita) and salmon (1.4kg).
In volume terms, the total amount of MSC-certified tuna consumed in the US market in both 2020 and 2021 amounted to 18,000 tonnes, making it the third largest market globally.
The US market has access to 1,147 MSC-certified products, of which 191 (16%) are tuna-based.
