BAP program includes environmental and social responsibility standards, food safety, animal health and welfare and traceability.

BAP certified facilities increased 29 percent in 2018

The Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) third-party certification program finished 2018 with 2,287 BAP-certified facilities worldwide, 29 percent more than the previous year.

Of that total, 1,534 are farms, 370 are processing plants, 45 are re-processing plants, 220 are hatcheries and 118 are feed mills.

There are also 245 farms that were previously BAP-certified, but are currently in fallow. The other 1,500 farms represent more than 1.5 million metric tonnes of production annually.

The four pillars of BAP certification

The BAP program has more than tripled in size in the past four years, growing from about 700 BAP-certified facilities by the end of 2014 to 1,500-plus facilities by the end of 2016 to 1,778 facilities by the end of 2017, thus demonstrating the industry’s long-term commitment to responsible aquaculture

The Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) label is prominently displayed in the packaging design for SeaPak Shrimp & Seafood Co.

The BAP program closed last year with certified facilities in 33 countries on six continents, representing an impressive 29 species: abalone, barramundi, bream, carp, catfish, char, clams, cobia, crab, crawfish, grouper, milkfish, mussels, oysters, pangasius, pomfret, pompano, red drum, salmon, scallops, seabass, seriola, shrimp, snapper, striped bass, sturgeon, tilapia, trout and turbot.

It is important to stress that 195 facilities are capable of offering four-star BAP product, meaning that the product originated from a BAP-certified processing plant, farm, hatchery and feed mill.

“The BAP program took the needs of the marketplace for confidence in food safety, environmental impact, social responsibility and animal welfare and applied them to each stage of the aquaculture value chain,” said Andrew Mallison, executive director of the Global Aquaculture Alliance.

“This end-to-end approach, with a broad assessment of risks, is unique but is also backed by the extensive membership and advocacy support of GAA. More and more partners are seeing the value of this program compared to stand-alone certifications, and we look forward to continuing to help grow the market for responsibly sourced seafood,” he highlighted.

There were multiple firsts for the BAP program last year, including the world’s first BAP-certified recirculating aquaculture system and seriola farm, first company to offer four-star BAP Mediterranean sea bass and sea bream, first company to offer four-star BAP king salmon, first Scottish company to attain BAP certification (for Atlantic salmon), first pet food product to carry to BAP label, first company to offer four-star BAP oysters, first BAP-certified mussel farm in Europe, and first BAP products (tilapia and pangasius) to be promoted in the Japanese market.

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