The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries and MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) standards help companies and organisations to promote and identify wild caught fish as sustainable and well managed. The MSC certification process covers fish caught from ‘vessel to plate’ and across the whole supply chain.
The Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC) principles and criteria for sustainable fishing were developed in 1999 as a method for promoting sustainable fisheries. The MSC standard applies to wild-capture fisheries only – whatever their size, type or location.
The MSC’s standard for determining environmentally sustainable, well-managed fisheries centres around three main principles: the condition of the fish stock, the fishery's impact on the surrounding ecosystem and the effectiveness and performance of the fishery's management system. To ensure that a fishery's products are sold correctly from boat to plate, the scheme is also supported by the MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) standard. This provides rules for the purchase, processing and sale of certified products.
The principles of the MSC Chain of Custody are:
- Purchasing from a certified supplier
- Certified products are identifiable
- Certified products are segregated
- Traceability and volumes are recorded
- Organisation has a management system
