First Facilities Certified to Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Chain of Custody Standard
Three U.S.-based seafood production facilities have become the first to be certified to the new Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard.
East Coast Seafood has successfully certified three of its facilities — Seatrade in New Bedford and Lakeville, Mass., as well as Maine Fair Trade in Prospect Harbor, Maine.
Said Denise Gurshin, BAP market development manager, “We are so pleased to have East Coast Seafood successfully certify their three facilities to the BAP Chain of Custody Standard. This standard is an option for those facilities that meet the BAP CoC requirements and simply re-label or re-pack BAP certified products. East Coast Seafood was an excellent partner to pilot the Chain of Custody.”
This new standard allows facilities that re-pack or re-label farm-raised seafood products from BAP-certified processors or re-processors to maintain traceability and ensure integrity of the BAP star status. A CoC facility may carry forward the BAP logo from a BAP-certified processor or re-processor.
“BAP is very well recognized and respected by most major food retailers and distributors across the Unite States and Canada, and this certification puts East Coast Seafood in an exclusive club of North American companies that can re-pack BAP products for our customers,” said Bob Blais, senior vice president of East Coast Seafood. “We thank Global Aquacultural Alliance for working with East Coast Seafood to develop this program.”
“The new BAP Chain of Custody Standard is still in pilot phase and has not yet begun its accreditation or benchmarking process,” said Greg Brown, SVP operations and strategic development for BAP. “We are also finishing the development of alternative criteria for the food safety, social accountability and environment responsibility pre-requisites. So it is GAA’s hope to finalize the CoC Standard by the end of this year.”
The BAP CoC Standard was created to support BAP market endorsers along with BAP supply and production chains to allow for the re-packing and re-labeling of BAP certified products while assuring BAP logo use integrity. This standard will allow for increased BAP presence in the market by offering a certification option for cold storage, third party re-packing and/or re-labeling facilities and distribution partners in BAP seafood supply chains.
For more information about the CoC Standard, contact the BAP team here.
About BAP
A division of Global Aquaculture Alliance, Best Aquaculture Practices is an international certification program based on achievable, science-based and continuously improved performance standards for the entire aquaculture production chain. BAP standards cover environmental responsibility, social accountability, food safety and animal welfare. The BAP program is based on independent audits that evaluate compliance with the BAP standards developed by GAA.
