GLOBALGAP – Building Consumer Confidence in Aquaculture Sustainability - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 141

6.2.6 Benchmarking and approval of equivalent

certification standards

Many other on-farm quality assurance systems have been in place for some time
prior to GLOBALGAP, so a way had to be found to encourage the development
of regionally adjusted integrated crop management systems to avoid the need for
farmers to conduct expensive, multiple audits. Under GLOBALGAP, existing na-
tional or regional quality assurance schemes that have successfully completed the
GLOBALGAP benchmarking process are recognised as equivalent to GLOBAL-
GAP.

6.3 The integrated aquaculture assurance standard

At the end of 2004, a new sector standard was launched by GLOBALGAP to include
aquaculture. The new integrated aquaculture assurance standard provides aquacul-
ture farms and retailers with a set of criteria for good aquaculture practices. The new
standard follows the format of other GLOBALGAP codes, covering critical areas
from record keeping, chemicals/medicines management, worker health and safety
and (to a lesser extent) environmental and social issues. The new standard enables
aquaculture farms to ensure that their produce meets the primary food safety de-
mands of the retail and food service market. To retailers this means that farmed fish
joins other food commodities such as fresh fruits and vegetables, cereal and live-
stock farming and coffee that can be certified to meet GLOBALGAP standards. The
farmed salmon standard covers all production stages up to slaughter. A chain-of-
custody standard (http://www.globalgap.org/cms/front content.php?idcat=48) cov-
ers all stages up to the retail store assuring traceability back to the certified farm,
thereby covering the entire supply chain of certified product.
The GLOBALGAP aquaculture assurance standard far farmed Atlantic salmon
was developed over 3 years in close cooperation with major food retailer Ahold,
its prime European supplier of farmed salmon (Marine Harvest Pieters) and cer-
tification body Societ´eGenerale de Surveillance (SGS). Other major salmon
producers joined the project after its commencement. The standard is freely avail-
able on the GLOBALGAP website (http://www.globalgap.org/cms/front content.
php?idcat=48) and was formally presented for the first time at the GLOBALGAP
Conference in November 2004 in Amsterdam. Most of the major salmon farming
companies have now achieved GLOBALGAP certification, or are in the process of
doing so.
As a farmed salmon aquaculture standard that has been developed and accepted
by the salmon farming producers and the major retail and food service buyers,
GLOBALGAP has proven to be an effective tool to assure food safety and related
sustainability issues to a growing number of consumers. A GLOBALGAP standard
for farmed tropical shrimp to cover food safety, environmental and social matters