New standards underpinning the Seafish Responsible Fishing Scheme (RFS) have been unanimously signed off by the board widening the scope of the scheme to include new social responsibility requirements.
RFS, which was developed by Seafish in 2006, has now been fully revised to include five core principles - safety, health and welfare, training and professional development, the vessel and its mission, treating fish as food and care for the environment.
Helen Duggan, head of responsible sourcing, Seafish, said: “For the first time, we can certify vessels which are demonstrating best practice in crew welfare and catching so seafood buyers can be confident that they are sourcing responsibly harvested products."
Each vessel and crew will be expected to meet the requirements of either the Multiple Crewed or Singled Handed RFS standards.
The scheme's independent certification body Food Certification International Ltd (FCI) will be carrying out pilot RFS audits on vessels over the next few months and the first vessels will be certified to the new standards during summer 2015.
Once the new audit process is finalised FCI will formalise the application for the RFS scheme to be audited by UKAS for ISO17065 accreditation to ensure all vessel audits carried out conform to these specified certification standards.
The RFS Oversight Board includes members from the catching, processing, wholesale, food service and retail sectors as well as representatives from environmental and safety and welfare groups.
In addition to these new standards, Seafish is also planning a Chain of Custody standard to ensure traceability throughout the whole supply chain.
