The appetite for sustainable seafood is growing according to new figures released by the Marine Stewardship Council.
Published as part of the not-for-profit’s 25th anniversary annual report, figures show that between April 2021 and March 2022, the number of MSC certified fisheries increased from 499 to 539. The number of companies certified to supply MSC-certified seafood has also increased by 5% to 5,985.
Rupert Howes, chief executive of the MSC said the past quarter-decade had been an ‘incredible journey’. “As we’ve learned in the last 25 years, when business, markets and consumers work together powerful, positive progress can be made,” he said.
“In contributing to the collective targets set out in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the MSC has an ambitious target to engage a third of the world’s wild seafood catch in our programme by 2030.”
The report also highlights signs of recovery from pandemic restrictions, the lifting of which brought a 39% increase in the volume of MSC-labelled sales in the food-to-go sector. There was also market growth in North America, southern Europe, Japan and South Korea, with new MSC-labelled products and partnerships being launched.
MSC-labelled tuna sales jumped 24% in the last year and sales of certified pet food grew by close to a 50% to 95,000 tonnes. However, challenges remain, notably the loss of certification of mackerel, Atlanto-Scandian herring and blue whiting from the North East Atlantic because of a failure of governments to agree quotas in line with scientific advice.
