Canada’s Northern Harvest Sea Farms Group is the world’s first salmon company to achieve four-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) status, denoting the company’s salmon processing plants, farm sites, hatcheries and feed mills are all BAP certified, the Global Aquaculture Alliance announced in December.
A four-star certification was achieved when Northern Harvest Smolt Limited in Stephenville, Newfoundland, earned BAP certification. It’s the first salmon hatchery to earn BAP certification since new BAP hatchery standards for finfish, crustaceans and mollusks were completed in September. (Previously, BAP hatchery standards existed only for shrimp.)
“Congratulations to the management of Northern Harvest on attaining hatchery, feed mill, farm and processing plant certification to the BAP standards. It’s the first company to achieve BAP four-star status for salmon, and this is a tribute to the company’s leadership,” said GAA Executive Director Wally Stevens.
Larry Ingalls, company president, said the achievement is a direct reflection of the commitment that Northern Harvest management and employees have toward sustainability. “Our employees and their families live in the same areas where we operate,” he said. “We eat the products we produce and we are all committed to ensuring the long term viability of our operations as well as environmental sustainability. We have proven once again that being a small, family-owned operation does not mean we cannot be a global industry leader.”
Northern Harvest Sea Farms’ processing plant, marine sites, and Skretting Canada feed mill in Bayside, New Brunswick, had previously attained BAP certification in October 2012. Additionally, Northern Harvest’s Bar Island site was Atlantic Canada’s first BAP-certified salmon farm. Certification of Northern Harvest Smolt Limited hatchery now distinguishes Northern Harvest Sea Farms as world’s only four-star BAP certified salmon aquaculture company.
About Northern Harvest
Founded in 1985 by the Ingalls family, Northern Harvest produces the finest marine farmed salmon in Atlantic Canada and is one of North America’s largest aquaculture companies, with salmon production levels in excess of 15,000 tons annually. Northern Harvest sells exclusively fresh never frozen salmon in the U.S. and Canadian markets.
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.
Source: Global Aquaculture Alliance
