Food Certification International (FCI) has announced the certification against the Marine Stewardship Council Chain of Custody (MSC CoC) Standard, of 32 member companies of the Russian Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) for the Sea of Okhotsk Pollock fishery.
Established in 2006, the PCA leads the Russian Pollock Sustainability Alliance and aims to promote and implement improvements for the fishery. The PCA membership currently includes 45 fishing companies, operating almost 130 fishing vessels, located within the Russian Far East regions of Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Magadan and Kamchatka. This represents a very important step in the expansion of FCI into the Russian market.
Alexey Buglak, Executive Director of the PCA, commented: “The PCA member companies are highly interested in making buyers and consumers of Russian Pollock confident that Russian traceability system for fish products is robust, and our supply chain meets MSC Chain of Custody standard. We believe that FCI expertise and experience will support us in this.”
James Allan, Aquaculture Manager for FCI, said: “Our selection by PCA to carry out the initial pre-assessment and assessment inspections for their members is direct recognition of FCI’s knowledge and experience in aquaculture and fisheries certification.”
“We look forward to working closely with the PCA, and to providing on-going surveillance and certification for their members.”
Mr Allan added: “The range and scope of our fisheries, aquaculture and processing activities continues to grow. These clients, in addition to the two full and two pre-assessment fisheries currently being assessed for MSC certification in the Murmansk area, add significant value to our growing Russian client-base. This further enhances our company growth and continuing market share within the global certification sector.”
Source: www.thefishsite.com