Friend of the Sea has come out on top in an assessment of fisheries and aquaculture eco certification programs.
In Decoding Seafood Eco-labels – a Food & Water Europe (FWE) paper –fishery certification programs such as Friend of the Sea and MSC were assessed. FWE identified four concerns regarding Friend of the Sea standards compared to eight concerns regarding MSC.
FWE is particularly concerned about MSC's prohibitive costs, lack of carbon footprint standards, and ‘free rider’ problem, where the fishery is given conditions for improvement, but can still carry the ecolabel before the improvements have been achieved.
Compared to other aquaculture certification programs, FWE identified four concerns for Friend of the Sea and eight for Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP), five for ASC (with another four pending) and five for Freedom Food. These concern include: prohibitive costs (BAP); no prohibition of GMOs (BAP); no prohibition of use of hormones (BAP and ASC); certification of farms with negative impact on mangrove ecosystems (BAP); no carbon footprint standards (BAP and ASC); free rider problem (ASC); and insufficient workers safety (BAP).
"The result of this new benchmark shows Friend of the Sea is the most reliable eco-label for seafood and the only one affordable for small scale producers of both farmed and wild-caught products", comments Dr Bray, founder and director of Friend of the Sea.
