The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is helping Polish fisheries improve their performance as it teams up with the BalticSea2020 foundation to launch its programme in the country.
Over the next three years, the MSC will help build a more sustainable fishing industry in the region, and provide Polish shoppers more opportunities to choose eco-labelled food.
Anna Debicka, project manager for Poland, MSC, said: “Our goal is to help the Polish seafood industry compete in a global marketplace that is seeking out credible, certified products. We also aim to build relations with scientific institutes, government bodies and conservation organisations to turn them into active supporters of fisheries and businesses seeking assessment and certification.”
“Finally, our target is to grow domestic demand for certified seafood, by increasing awareness for seafood sustainability with Polish consumers - a trend that is already visible in other European countries and will certainly catch on in Poland as well,” she added.
With more than 100,000 tonnes of annual catches, the MSC says Poland is an important fishing nation on the Baltic Sea coast.
More than 50 Polish processing and trading companies are certified to MSC’s Chain of Custody standard and, to date, more than 200 products in Poland carry the MSC ecolabel.
In the next three years, the MSC says it plans to engage 85 supply chain companies, increase the number of MSC-labelled products to 600 and see at least two Polish fishing organisations become certified to its environmental standard.
