Sustainable Seafood Week begins Saturday

China Sustainable Seafood Week will begin Saturday, the Marine Stewardship Council China program and 78 stores from eight major retailers in China announced.

This will be the third program initiated by the MSC China program, under the NationWide Sustainable Consumption program organized by the China Retailer and Chain Store Association (CCFA), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and UNEP China program.

Since 2012, the International Olympic Committee has made purchasing responsibly farmed and sustainable wild-caught seafood as an important topic of the Olympic Games.

The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games announced a comprehensive agreement to promote Marine Stewardship Council and Aquaculture Stewardship Council certified seafood at the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Patrick Caleo, MSC Asia Pacific director, said all of the seafood served to the athletes, officials, press and at the onsite restaurants will be certified as sustainably wild-caught and responsibly farmed.

Caleo said the Rio Olympic Games would supply the largest amount of sustainable seafood in history.

An Yan, MSC China Program director, said that compared with the previous program, 2016 Sustainable Seafood Week received more support from China retail partners.

"Those retailers include Aeon, Metro, Ole'(food hall) under China Resources Vanguard, Concord Investment China Ltd.(RT-mart), RAINBOW, City Shop and Sam's Club, as well as IKEA China, which either has started the journey of sustainable procurement with support MSC China, or discussed how to develop a goal to serve more sustainable and traceable seafood to Chinese consumers," An said.

The one-week program will include traditional seafood tasting demonstrations. MSC will also organize several in-store programs, including small booklets given away at point of sales, to journalist/ VIP members of retailers' cooking classes on sustainable cod and education for retailer's kids' clubs. All activities are aimed to increase Chinese consumers' awareness of sustainable fisheries and products with the MSC blue eco-label.

"Choosing products with the blue MSC eco-label gives Chinese consumers confidence in knowing that the product origin can be fully traced through the MSC Chain of Custody system, especially when products are traced back to certified sustainable fisheries," Caleo said.

"The China Sustainable Seafood Week is part of the Asia Pacific Awareness Building program. Similar to Japan and Australia, the program encourages people to choose labeled products so as to conserve the marine ecosystem."

Guo Geping, president of CCFA, said,"CCFA has a long-term goal to build up market links with credible certified products to China, through close partnership with standard organizations. MSC certified seafood will be the encouraged procurement policy of China retailers. Through implementation of sustainable procurement policy, retailers will provide substantial healthy and environment-friendly seafood to Chinese consumers in a great number of product varieties."

"So far, there are more than 40 MSC labeled products available to Chinese consumers, although it will be niche, as this is the beginning of the sustainable seafood market development. With the growth of Chinese retailers on the journey of sustainable procurement, Chinese consumers will have more opportunities to find seafood with the blue tick," An said.

Additional retailers, the online platform JD.com, and international hotel chains, such as Shangri La, participated in the 2016 SSW seafood promotion. This will give Chinese consumers more opportunities to experience sustainable seafood.