Seafood Sustainability Initiatives and Auditing Division (SSIAD)

As an accredited Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) conformity assessment body (CAB), MRAG Americas has evaluated hundreds of COC clients, leading to certifications of companies ranging from small, single-employee brokers to national groups with hundreds or even thousands of sites such as Whole Foods Market, McDonald’s US, McDonald’s Canada and Loblaw’s.  Additional clients include James Madison University and the University of Virginia, Bumble Bee Foods, Ducktrap River of Maine, Kraft-Heinz Foods Company, and Starkist.

Our roster of auditors allows us to accommodate both national and international work on short notice. Senior team oversight, regular witness audits and re-training ensure that we maintain a high level of quality and consistency across projects. Our unique position as a science-based consultancy, with deep knowledge of fisheries management, policy and seafood supply chains, allows us to provide clients with balanced reports and insights that are highly respected by governments, NGOs and major seafood buyers. Additionally, our experience with a wide variety of COC clients gives us intimate knowledge of traceability and the data-entry process, including requirements and challenges, at all steps of the supply chain.

Beyond MSC and ASC Chain of Custody, we have worked with retailers to develop internal requirements and buying standards to ensure that the products they sell have been farmed or harvested, transported, processed and handled responsibly.  These standards apply to the entire supply chain, to ensure that the product meets the retailers’ strict standards, and are properly handled, segregated, labeled and transported until the time the product reaches desired locations.

MRAG has also reviewed supply chains for major retailers (i.e. retailer names subject to NDAs) and has worked with them to develop strategies to address risks from Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, unsustainable environmental practices, and child and forced labor issues.  MRAG assessors have provided technical reviews (i.e. assessments) to clients wanting to use their own standards and/or other globally recognized standards. Key to this work is determining which sources of data to trust for the analysis. MRAG’s work is always evidenced-based and fully transparent, so that clients have a clear understanding of where the information originated and why it was utilized. This allows businesses to make informed decisions, based on the best available and unbiased data.

We frequently run traceability exercises for a variety of clients, ranging from tuna supply chains spanning the globe, to CoC clients, to smaller operators wanting a solution which caters to their specific business model. Traceability exercises are typically focused on the product’s paper trail, but can be supported through on-site audits. While any exercise only offers a ‘snapshot’ of the supply chain, it does demonstrate client interest in the process, provides more visibility regarding where the product has been, minimizes the risk of unwanted products ‘slipping’ into the chain, and allows clients to back-up public claims they might want to make regarding their product offering.