MSC Fishery, ASC Aquaculture and Chain of Custody Certification Seafood Supply Chain Evaluation

Traceability Auditing
Knowledge of where fish comes from and assurance that it was sourced responsibly is critical in making purchasing decisions. Supermarkets and seafood traders want assurance that the fish that they are supplied is sustainable. NGOs and consumers demand environmental conservation and industry responsibility. MRAG gives assurance by verifying full-chain traceability, aquaculture production, assessing sourcing criteria, undertaking risk assessment and assuring quality.

Benefits include:

• Minimise the risk of handling illegal fish
• Endorsement of sustainable practices
• Farms assessed to Aquaculture certification standards
• Fishery and Aquaculture assessed to Chain of Custody standards

MRAG are able to provide a wide range of services to wholesalers, retailers, and factories:

For Aquaculture	Wild Capture Fisheries
Aquaculture Stewardship Council(ASC) applicant certification body for pre-assessments and full-assessments. SA 8000 Social Accountability Lead Auditors.	Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification body (MRAG Americas).
Experience with all major species including: Pangasius, tilapia, salmon and trout.	Experience with major commercial species.
Chain of Custody (CoC) certification for fish factories, wholesalers, retailers, traders and vessels. Entire supply chain verification (full-chain traceability) from catch to final product. Third party audits of seafood suppliers.
Risk Assessment to combat Illegal, Unreported & Unregulated (IUU) fishing in order to ensure your seafood has not been caught illegally.
Factory Compliance Audits.
Supply chain case studies.

Expertise
MRAG is an independent company with over 20 years experience in fisheries and aquaculture all over the world – in over 60 countries . Our team comprises more than 40 full time scientists and consultants with a wide variety of expertise such as: auditing, verification and assessment of fisheries, stocks and environmental. We provide traceability audits, aquaculture evaluation, chain of custody assessment, supply chain studies and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). We specialise in independent, third party verification of whether current systems are sufficient to guarantee the integrity of information transfer. We conduct on-site audits to check that the product flow balances over a period and documents match to physical records. We have experienced Group auditors and have a track record in producing high quality scientific analysis and reports.

MRAG currently has over 30 clients for Chain of Custody assessments and 12 for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Traceability Assurance, including Group certification of multiple sites and major retailers in Europe, Asia Pacific and the United States.

Aquaculture Certification
MRAG Ltd is an applicant ASC certification body and has auditors who have attended the ASC Pangasius Standard Training for Certification Bodies in Vietnam (September 2011) and who are trained to the highest Social Accountability standard (SA 8000). Standards will cover issues such as: legality; land and water usage; pollution and waste management; genetics and biodiversity; feed management; health management, veterinary medicines and chemicals; and social accountability.

Aquaculture Standards will shortly be available for:

Abalone	Salmon
Bivalves	Seriola
Cobia	Shrimp
Freshwater Trout	Tilapia
Pangasius

Chain of Custody Certification
MRAG performs Chain of Custody Certifications under the MSC standard and soon to the ASC standards. The Chain of Custody certification, which is the traceability element of the MSC/ASC certification programme, ensures that the product purchased by a consumer was sourced from a sustainably certified fishery.

Customer License Code MSCI0408 www.msc.org

Fishery Certification
MRAG Americas, Inc. has been approved to conduct third party sustainable Fishery Certifications in accordance with the MSC's Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing (Download an application). These Principles and Criteria (and the corresponding scoring guideposts) are the guidelines against which client fisheries are rated. A client fishery must meet or exceed the minimum standards for 1) stock assessment and stock status, 2) ecosystem impacts, and 3) fishery management system to receive certification.

For more information please contact:
Europe	USA
Ms Tracy Cambridge Lead auditor, Traceability and Certification MRAG Ltd 18, Queen Street London, W1J 5PN, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 7755 (General) Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 7778 (Direct) Fax: +44 (0)20 7499 5388	Dr. Robert Trumble Vice President MRAG Americas, Inc. Southeast Office 10051 5th Street North, Suite 105 St. Petersburg, FL 33702 +1 (727) 563-9070