Three US-based seafood production facilities have become the first to be certified to the new Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Chain of Custody (CoC) standard.
East Coast Seafood has successfully certified three of its facilities, which include Seatrade in Massachusetts and Maine Fair Trade in Maine.
This new standard allows facilities that repack or relabel farm-raised seafood products from BAP-certified processors or reprocessors to maintain traceability and ensure integrity of the BAP star status. A CoC facility may carry forward the BAP logo from a BAP-certified processor or reprocessor.
“The new BAP Chain of Custody Standard is still in pilot phase and has not yet begun its accreditation or benchmarking process,” said Greg Brown, senior vice president of operations and strategic development for BAP.
“We are also finishing the development of alternative criteria for the food safety, social accountability and environment responsibility pre-requisites."
The Global Aquaculture Alliance, which owns the BAP program, hopes to finalize the standard by the end of this year.
