Cooke gets Ocean Wise nod for wild fish and aquaculture products

Ocean Wise Seafood program partnership ensures Cooke’s wild fishery and aquaculture products come from sustainable, responsibly harvested resources

By SeaWestNews

True North Seafood, a division of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., which ships seafood products to over 67 countries, will partner with the Ocean Wise Seafood program to ensure that its aquaculture and wild caught seafood products come from sustainable, responsibly harvested resources.

The Ocean Wise Seafood is a conservation program that makes it easy for consumers to choose sustainable seafood for the long term health of our oceans.

“With this Ocean Wise Seafood recommendation for our wild fishery and aquaculture products, our customers can feel confident that the work our fishermen and sea farmers do every day ensures our products come from a sustainable, responsibly harvested resource,” said Joel Richardson, Vice President of Public Relations, Cooke Inc.

“True North Seafood carries several third party certifications, which attests that our products meet the highest standards. We are delighted to add the Ocean Wise symbol next to our seafood items assuring customers of an ocean-friendly seafood choice,” he said in a statement.

Ocean Wise Seafood recommendations cover both farmed and wild seafood. The organization works directly with restaurants, markets, food services and seafood suppliers to ensure they have the most current scientific information regarding sustainable seafood and to help them make ocean-friendly buying decisions. Sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices include:

• Harvesting that ensures healthy and resilient stocks and populations.
• Effective and adaptive management.
• Limited negative impacts on habitats and other species.

“The Ocean Wise Seafood program is proud to partner with True North Seafood and work with them to increase access to sustainable seafood options for their customers. Partnering with influential businesses like True North Seafood will send a strong message to industry that preferentially choosing sustainable seafood helps ensure the long term success of this industry,” said Sophika Kostyniuk, Ocean Wise Seafood Program Manager.

Cooke was recently selected by SeafoodSource.com as one of the Top 25 Seafood Suppliers in North America for Sustainability & Conservation. It has also attained the 4-Star BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices) Certification mark, which attests that their farmed salmon meets the BAP standards on four separate links in the chain of production: sea sites, processing plants, feed mills and freshwater hatcheries.

Cooke Aquaculture Inc. is a vertically integrated family company based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, with salmon farming operations in Atlantic Canada, the United States, Chile and Scotland as well as seabass and seabream farming operations in Spain.

The company has a joint venture with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to farm trout in Puget Sound. The partners are working together to establish trout aquaculture operations in Port Angeles Harbor.

The Washington State Department of Ecology (ECY) is currently evaluating the request by, Cooke Aquaculture to modify its existing permits to allow the company to switch the species under culture from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) to triploid rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), also known as steelhead.

“We believe that the development of aquaculture in Washington state is vital to food security, public health, and a strong regional economy,” said Jeanne McKnight, Executive Director Northwest Aquaculture Alliance.

We need all forms of aquaculture to thrive, particularly in a state that has the ideal natural resources, the technology, and the “people power” to make it happen.

Cooke’s expansion in the US comes amidst bipartisan legislation, that sets the stage for a federal regulatory system to govern offshore aquaculture, opening a pathway to large-scale seafood farming in the U.S. exclusive economic zone.

(Image courtesy of True North Seafood Inc)