Sourcing under- MSC- assessment fish - Summary

“I want to source from a fishery going through MSC assessment. Can I purchase the fish before it is certified so that I can prepare everything in advance of it becoming certified?”

Summary

 Fish cannot be sold, promoted, or labelled as ‘MSC certified’ until the fishery has successfully completed its assessment.  However, there are steps you can take if you decide to purchase fish caught in a fishery currently undergoing assessment so that you have everything already prepared if the fishery does become certified. In this case, the fish sourced is called ‘under-MSC-assessment fish’.

Please Note: there is a significant risk attached to this action. If the fishery fails its assessment the fish you have bought cannot be sold, promoted, or labelled as MSC certified. Any investment that is made in advance of a fishery becoming certified is entirely at your own risk.
 

Conditions

• If you do want to buy and sell fish as under-MSC-assessment fish, there are a number of conditions that must be in place:
  

1. Your company must have MSC Chain of Custody certification    
   
2. Your MSC Chain of Custody certification must include the under-MSC-assessment fish you are interested in
3. Your company must be located in a certain position in the supply chain (this is described in ‘How it works’, Step 2).
   
   

• Your company will be allowed to either: handle and sell under-MSC-assessment fish or handle but not sell under-MSC-assessment fish before the fishery is certified (see ‘How it works’, Step 2).

• Before you purchase the fish that you or another company further down the supply chain want to label  or promote as MSC certified, you have to ensure that the fish has been caught on or after the ‘Target Eligibility Date’  for that fishery. The ‘Actual Eligibility Date’ is the date from which fish caught in the newly certified fishery can be promoted or labelled as MSC certified. (see Glossary section).

Risks

• The fishery might fail its assessment. If this happens, any fish accumulated by companies that are allowed to stock under-MSC-assessment fish cannot be sold, labelled or promoted as MSC.

• The Actual Eligibility Date (AED) is the date from which fish caught in the newly certified fishery can be labelled or promoted as MSC certified. The fishery assessment might be delayed so that the AED is put back. If this happens, the company handling under-MSC-assessment fish will have to sell any fish caught before the AED as non MSC certified.

• If you only become certified for Chain of Custody for an under-MSC-assessment fish the certification will be cancelled if the fishery fails.

• If the fishery does fail, you will have to bear all the costs that you have had in preparing for it to be certified.

These are commercial risks that have to be borne by the company taking advantage of the under-MSC-assessment rules.