We’ve produced tools, guides and documents to help you to buy and sell MSC certified seafood, and manage your certification.
Find a certified supplier
Once a company is certified to the MSC Chain of Custody Standard, their status appears as 'valid' on Find a Supplier. This is the official source of certificate validity. You can check any certified fisheries on Track a Fishery.
Ecolabel licencing
If you wish to sell seafood with the blue MSC label, in addition to your MSC Chain of Custody certificate, you’ll need a MSC ecolabel license agreement.
Certified ingredient percentage rules
Download requirements for using non-certified seafood as an ingredient in products sold with the blue MSC label. (link docCurrently https://www.msc.org/documents/scheme-documents/msc-scheme-requirements/certified-ingredient-percentage-rules/)
Surveillance audits
Once certified, you’ll have regular surveillance audits. These are usually once a year, but the frequency depends on the version of the Standard your company is certified to (i.e. Default, Group or Consumer-Facing Organisation) and the specifics of your organisation. The process is similar to your initial and re-certification audit process. An auditor will check you're maintaining the correct procedures to identify, segregate, control, manage and trace MSC certified seafood.
There is a small chance that your company will receive an unannounced audit. Each certifier must conduct unannounced audits for at least 1% of their clients.
You can schedule your MSC surveillance audit to coincide with another audit. Check if your certifier offers combined audits with other schemes such as Global GAP, BRC or IFS. Your certifier can delay or advance an MSC surveillance audit by up to three months so that it falls at a convenient time.
You can find more information about surveillance audits in our Get Certified guides.
Raising a complaint with your certifier
All MSC certifiers are accredited by Accreditation Services International (ASI). All certifiers have a formal complaints procedure. If you need to raise a complaint about your certifier/an auditor, please use your certifier’s complaints procedure as a first step. You can find this on their website, or request it from them directly. If you are not satisfied with their response, you can raise a complaint directly with ASI.
Handling under-assessment product
Under-assessment product, formerly known as “Under-MSC-Assessment Fish” (UMAF), relates to seafood that is harvested while a fishery is undergoing assessment to the MSC Fisheries Stanard, before it is certified but after a designated ‘Eligibility Date’. This assessment process usually takes around 18 months to complete.
Eligibility
Companies can only buy and store under-assessment product if they are:
- part of a fishery undergoing assessment,
- part of a farm undergoing ASC assessment, or
- a named member of the client group for a fishery/farm.
Eligible companies must retain ownership of the product until the fishery/farm is certified, but they are able to use third party storage or subcontractors to handle the product where needed.
Companies eligible to handle under-assessment product must ensure that it:
- Is clearly identified and segregated
- Is fully traceable back to the unit of certification
- Is not sold or labelled as 'certified' or with the ecolabel until the source fishery or farm has been certified.
Full details on how to handle under-assessment products can be found in the MSC Chain of Custody Standard under section 5.6 for the Default and Group Standard.
(add in contact) Contact your local MSC office for more information about MSC Chain of Custody certification.
Reporting changes which may impact your certification
If your operations change during your 3-year Chain of Custody certification, you will need to report these to your certifier.
When to report changes to your certifier:
| Changes | Requirements for informing your certificate holders |
| Notify within 2 days of detecting the issue |
|
Inform within 10 days of the change occurring, or within 10 days of:
|
| Inform before the change occurs
The certification body will provide written approval of this change and may require an on-site or remote audit before authorising any changes |
| Inform during surveillance and re-certification audits The certificate holder can agree more frequent reporting with the certification body if they wish |
| For CFO certificate holder: updating your site list | Inform within 5 days of receiving a request from your certification body |
Further details on reporting changes can be found in the MSC Chain of Custody Standard.
Contact us
For more information about MSC Chain of Custody certification, contact your local MSC office. (add in contact card?)
MSC Chain of Custody codes
MSC Chain of Custody codes are automatically generated by the MSC for use in documentation.
How MSC Chain of Custody codes are assigned
Since 1 April 2014, all new MSC Chain of Custody certificate codes, starting at MSC-C-54001, have been automatically generated by the MSC.
All certificate holders with certificates issued before 31 March 2014 were assigned certificate codes starting at MSC-C-50001 in chronological order based on when they first joined the MSC Chain of Custody program.
Will my code change?
In the majority of cases, your code will remain the same for the entire time you are certified. Your code would only change under rare circumstances, for example:
- If you had a single-site certificate and join an existing group or multi-site certificate, you would need to adopt the existing multi-site certificate code.
- If you were previously part of a multi-site or group certificate and left to obtain a separate single-site Chain of Custody certificate, you would be assigned a new code.
Where can I find my supplier’s customer’s or my code?
You can check on Find a Supplier. Search by previous codes and company names to discover the MSC-generated Chain of Custody code.
Changes to the MSC Chain of Custody Standard
The MSC Chain of Custody Standard is reviewed and updated at least every three years. Smaller changes to the Certification Requirements may be incorporated more frequently. We value your input and run a consultation on any significant changes. You can find and comment on policies under review via the MSC program improvements website.
Transitioning to the updated version of the MSC Chain of Custody Standard
From 1 September 2015, all companies will be audited to new versions of the Chain of Custody Standard at their next audit. Find out how this will affect your organisation, and what you need to do to prepare.
Contact us
Contact your Ecolabel Account Manager for more information about MSC Chain of Custody codes. (add in contact details)