New hatchery standard targets safety and traceability

The latest version of the Global Seafood Alliance’s hatchery standard includes new requirements for worker safety, food safety, water quality and traceability.

Version 2.0 of the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Hatchery Standard, published yesterday, will take effect as from 4 April 2023.

The standard applies to all aquaculture hatchery and nursery facilities for finfish, crustaceans and molluscs that produce eggs and/or juvenile aquatic animals for live transfer to other aquaculture facilities and to all species covered by the BAP farm standards.

A number of new requirements were added to the standard, including:

• Hatcheries are now required to conduct a risk assessment of potential human food-safety risks associated with their operations.
• The worker-safety and employee-relations requirements have been updated, including requirements for wages and benefits, working hours including overtime, voluntary labour, child labour and young workers, use of workers from recruitment agencies, discrimination, disciplinary procedures, worker voice, and worker health and safety.
• The effluent monitoring parameters and limits for land-based systems have been updated and include unique parameters and limits for recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).
• The water-quality monitoring requirements for cages or net pens in fresh or brackish water have been revised, consistent with the approach adopted in the BAP Farm Standard Issue 3.0.
• The BAP fish in fish out (FIFO) limits for hatcheries using more than 50 metric tons of dry feed per year have been revised, and a requirement to calculate the forage fish dependency ratio (FFDR) has been added.
• Requirements for live feeds produced in hatchery operations have been added.
• Hatcheries are required to control the sources of their broodstock/eggs via an effective internal auditing process.
• Requirements to limit escape events were updated.
• Traceability requirements, particularly those related to demonstrating BAP star status, were updated, and trace-forward and trace-back exercises are now required.

Best Aquaculture Practices is a third-party certification program developed by the Global Seafood Alliance, an international, non-profit trade association headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, dedicated to advancing environmentally and socially responsible seafood practices through education, advocacy and third-party assurances.