Four-Star BAP Status for True North Salmon
True North salmon from Atlantic Canada and Maine has achieved four-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) status. True North salmon is produced by Cooke Aquaculture Inc. — North America’s largest vertically integrated, independent salmon-farming company.
Four-star BAP status denotes a combination of the company’s salmon processing plants, farms, feed mills and hatcheries are BAP certified. It’s the highest such achievement in the BAP program.
Four-star BAP status was achieved when three of Cooke’s salmon hatcheries recently earned BAP certification. Cooke is the world’s first salmon company to have more than one hatchery BAP certified. Also, Cooke is the second salmon company in Atlantic Canada — and only the third in the world — to achieve four-star BAP status.
In February 2014, Cooke achieved three-star BAP status, for its processing plants, several salmon farm sites and its Northeast Nutrition Inc. feed mill. Once the new BAP hatchery standards for finfish, crustaceans and mollusks were completed in September 2014, Cooke applied for BAP certification of its hatcheries.
“This was always our goal, and our team is proud of this accomplishment,” said Cooke said CEO Glenn Cooke. “Each step of the journey — from the hatchery to the farm to the feed manufacture to the processing — is done in-house at Cooke-owned facilities, so our people take extra pride knowing that it is their work and diligence that earned the BAP four stars.”
“Certifications like the BAP are an excellent measure and learning tool. The entire process helps us identify areas for improvement,” added Cooke. “That never ends. Part of maintaining this certification is to keep improving and to continue delivering a great product with minimal environmental impact.”
About BAP
A division of the 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 supply chain — farms, hatcheries, processing plants and feed mills — that assure healthful foods produced through environmentally and socially responsible means. BAP certification is based on independent audits that evaluate compliance with the BAP standards developed by the Global Aquaculture Alliance.
About Cooke Aquaculture
Established in 1985 as Kelly Cove Salmon by Gifford, Michael and Glenn Cooke, the company now has salmon operations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Maine, Chile and Scotland as well as sea bass and sea bream operations in Spain. Today, Cooke Aquaculture has more than 2,700 employees and processes and sells more than 115,000 metric tonnes of salmon and 24,000 metric tonnes of sea bass and sea bream annually. The company’s processing, sales and marketing division is True North Salmon Co., and its products are marketed under the True North Salmon and Jail Island Seafood brands. Salmones Cupquelan salmon is marketed under the Heritage Salmon brand.
