Marine Harvest Chile has completed the Best Aquaculture Practices’ (BAP) new multi-site zone cluster program, resulting in nine of its salmon farm sites and two of its processing plants attaining BAP certification, the Global Aquaculture Alliance announced in early February.
Thanks to the biosecurity measures implemented by Chile’s regulatory authorities, the BAP multi-site zone cluster program is an ideal fit for Chile’s salmon and mussel facilities. The program allows an applicant with multiple farm sites in a federally set zone, also known as a “barrio,” or neighborhood, to apply for BAP certification for more than one site at a time. In addition to multi-site zone cluster, farms can be certified as a group.
“At Marine Harvest, we are proud to achieve three-star BAP for our operations in Chile, which confirms the high standards of our operations, our commitment toward sustainability and our engagement with our customers,” said Gianfranco Nattero, Marine Harvest’s managing director of sales and marketing in the Americas. “This certification will allow us to continue to grow and develop the salmon category in the U.S. market.”
“We are extremely pleased that Marine Harvest Chile achieved BAP certification with two processing plants and nine farms, which is demonstrating real change on the water,” said Peter Redmond, BAP’s VP of market development. “The BAP program continues to be dynamic and responsive to the marketplace’s needs. The new group and multi-site zone cluster programs finally allow for multiple farms to apply for certification at one time rather than one farm at a time. It’s costly and, in a lot of cases, unnecessary.
“The feed mill that Marine Harvest Chile uses for its farms is already BAP certified, so the company is essentially going from no BAP stars to three star BAP overnight. It’s quite an accomplishment.”
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 global 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.
About Marine Harvest
Marine Harvest ASA is one of the largest seafood companies in the world, and the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon. The company employs 11,715 people, and is represented in 23 countries. In 2014 the company had a turnover of NOK 25 billion. Marine Harvest is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Marine Harvest supplies healthy, delicious and sustainably farm-raised salmon and processed seafood to more than 70 markets worldwide. The company is present and trusted in all major salmon farming regions in the world. Estimated salmon production for 2015 is 430,000 tons.
Source: Global Aquaculture Alliance
