Main image: The Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) Seafood Watch team collaborating with a shrimp farmer in Cà Mau, Vietnam.
Seafresh helps giant tiger shrimp farmers prove that their products meet sustainability standards.
Global seafood business Seafresh has committed to help 3,000 giant tiger shrimp farmers in Vietnam to achieve a Best Choice rating within the Partnership Assurance Model, which was established by Seafood Watch, a sustainability program run by the internationally-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) in the US.
And 295 small shrimp farmers supplying our products have already achieved their Best Choice rating before March 2023.
More sustainable shrimp
By achieving a Best Choice rating, shrimp farmers can demonstrate that they’re supplying more environmentally sustainable shrimp to their customers.
This is particularly important in markets such as the US where companies rely on the sustainability standards and recommendations set by the Partnership Assurance Model when purchasing seafood.
Demand grows by 5 percent every year
We’re supporting small local shrimp farmers in Vietnam to demonstrate sustainable aquaculture practices so they can make their Best Choice products available to major US buyers amongst others.
This is at a time when demand for farmed shrimp in the US alone is growing by almost five percent every year.
Seafresh is helping Seafood Watch to achieve its ambitious goal of ushering 20,000 giant tiger shrimp farmers in Vietnam’s Southern Mekong Delta towards a Best Choice rating by 2025.
About the Seafood Watch Partnership Assurance Model
Seafood Watch’s Partnership Assurance Model brings together local and national governments, seafood and shrimp farmers in a specific production region and end buyers (national and international) to design, implement, and verify sustainability improvements throughout the production process.
To achieve the Best Choice rating, shrimp farmers are supported as they go through a rigorous verification process suitable to the region in which they operate.
The process helps shrimp farmers to improve the sustainability of their products and production methods, providing them with cost-efficient and legitimate assurance that meets the requirements of global buyers and markets. Read more about Seafresh and the Seafood Watch Partnership Assurance Model here.
Contributing to the community development fund
As part of the Partnership Assurance Model, Seafood Watch is also working to ensure that benefits arising from verification and access to new markets also reach fishers, farmers, and their communities directly. That’s why we’re implementing the Improvement Verification Platform (IVP) in association with emerging work on equity and benefit distribution throughout the supply chain.
Dominique Gautier, Director of Sustainability, Seafresh Group, said: “With this revolutionary IVP tool, we can determine the sustainability of an entire region – something that hasn’t been done to date by ratings or certification programs. This is truly a game-changer in terms of increasing access to sustainable product while enabling more small-scale farmers to enter the global market of sustainable seafood.”
In addition, another program is the concept of a new community development fund, where companies invest money back into farming communities to be spent at the communities’ discretion.
