Organic makes its mark

The ESE is the world’s largest seafood trade fair: over 1,600 exhibitors from every corner of the world present their fishery products there, a growing number derived from aquaculture. The ESE is a global show, so you can see Canadian firms negotiating with their customers from the USA, and Korean importers scanning the exhibits for bargain offers from Vietnam. Naturland has been participating in the ESE since 1999, and the number of Naturland partners exhibiting at this trade fair has been growing steadily over the years. And what is even more important: “bio” and “organic” are no longer merely one aspect of many in the firms‘ presentations, something which was common in the early years of organic aquaculture, but are nowadays often the prime topic.

This is all the more remarkable if you consider the various attempts at conventional certification which have been devised in recent years for fish and seafood. This includes, for example, GlobalGAP, ACC and ASC in the aquaculture sector, and MSC and FoS in capture fishery. All these labels cite “sustainability” as one of their concerns in general terms, and one would be forgiven for thinking that organic production and certification would be feeling some competitive pressure. However, precisely the opposite is the case: the very confusion induced by the increasing number of labels and certification systems means that the producer, the market and the consumer welcome the fact that Naturland stands for explicit, clear-cut concepts and consistent procedures. Its approach, which is recognised as genuinely organic, does justice to its claim to furthering holistic sustainability (organic, social, economic), whilst other, “new” label systems are still searching for a common denominator.

The following products certified by Naturland were presented at the ESE 2010: organic salmon from Ireland and Scotland, organic trout from Italy, organic sea bass, organic gilthead seabream and organic shadefish from Greece and Croatia, organic shrimps from Brazil and Ecuador (Western White) as well as from Bangladesh, Vietnam and India (Black Tiger and freshwater prawns). In addition, organic processors from Germany, Poland and France were represented. With Lake Victoria perch from the pilot fishery project in Tanzania, the new Naturland “Wildfish” logo made its debut at the ESE.