MWBRANDS SUSTAINABILITY GROUP POLICY

As a responsible, leading company within the canned fish industry in Europe, MWBrands takes its responsibility to the marine environment extremely seriously. We understand the issues associated with fishing and that as a purchaser of fish products, our sourcing policy can have an impact on the marine ecosystem. We therefore work proactively with various specialists to ensure we continuously remain aware of any issues which arise over conservation and fish stocks. 

Full Fish Sustainability policy statement is enclosed. 

In summury ... 

Fisheries management

We support actions to strengthen fisheries management objectives for the conservation and wise use of fish stocks and the conservation of their ecosystems, and actively seek to source fish from well-managed fisheries.

An evidence of our commitment is being a founding member of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF www.iss-foundation.org). ISSF is not an Ecolabel nor a Certification Theme. Its role is to improve tuna fisheries management. It represents an internationally recognized global partnership that keeps conservation at the core of its mission and that brings together scientists, the industry and the environmental non-governmental organization community to achieve sustainable tuna fisheries. The ISSF undertake science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of fish stocks, reducing by-catch and promoting ecosystem health.

Fish Stock status

We source from stocks where catches are limited to a level to maintain high stock productivity and good health of the wider ecosystem. We support management that ensures fishing capacity is commensurate with the productivity of the fishery. 

Ecosystem impacts

We recognise that fishing can have impacts on the marine environment, including on non-target species. We, as a company that purchases fish products, recognise that these issues are connected to our industry. Therefore, where they are identified by best available science we work proactively with the ISSF and our suppliers to ensure that the ecosystem impacts of fishing are minimised through implementation of ‘best practices’ to reduce by-catch, including no-take zones where appropriate, and we encourage others to do so

Tuna By-catch

Bycatch is considered today to be a major issue.  It refers to any fish that is caught during fishing and should not have, eg. Sharks, turtles etc… By working with Science, improving best practices (technology, methods),  we aim at reducing, if not completely eliminating non-target fish species.

Fishing operations

We work closely with our suppliers to ensure that fishing operations comply with national and international laws and agreements and with the stock management and fishing methods covered by the appropriate RFMOs. 

IUU

We take the issue of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing extremely seriously. It is modern piracy, threatening the capacity of RFMO’s to protect fisheries, and the capacity of  the coastal countries governments to comply with regulations. IUU is a threat to the sustainability of global tuna stocks. We do not buy fish from IUU vessels or fish that has been trans-shipped at sea.

We also do not buy fish from fishing vessels that do not ban the practice of shark-finning. We only purchase from vessel-owning companies that have a published policy prohibiting shark finning on board its vessels, and we will not purchase from any vessel that has been found to have finned for 2 years following the date of the most recent finding.

Through our traceability procedure we ensure no IUU caught tuna is processed in our plants.

Catch to Consumer

In addition to supplying safe fish products of high quality and high nutritional value, MWBrands pursues full-chain traceability from catch to consumer

In 2010 we implemented important traceability initiatives with the following actions being put in place :

• indication of the tuna specie on the label
• name of the ocean where the fish is caught.

An annual audit by an independent company is conducted to assess our actual compliance versus our sustainability statement.