Independent Chair’s foreword
The Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients was launched in October 2021. Since then, we have embraced a variety of challenges and engaged with many stakeholders.
An initiative from Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organisation, it is a pre-competitive platform reflecting the whole marine ingredients value chain. It draws on SFP’s experience setting up and managing Regional Roundtables.
The Global Roundtable has a long-term approach aiming at increasing availability of sustainable marine ingredients and driving environmental and social improvements in fisheries. To achieve this, our members contribute to maintaining a global overview of the state of the resources and industry and report to the group on meaningful projects.
I am proud to be representing Global Roundtable members in 2023 and continuing the work which has been started.
Árni M. Mathiesen
GLOBAL ROUNDTABLE MEMBERS
In December 2022, the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients is composed of 13 Members, covering the whole marine ingredients value chain and committed to an annual membership fee.
The Secretariat is run by SFP and IFFO, in close coordination with the Independent Chair.
2021-2022 Key activities
Sustainability updates
- SFP updates are based on FishSource and Reduction fisheries reports
- 2 updates a year
“SFP created and maintains FishSource, a one-of-a-kind public online resource with profiles on thousands of fisheries and dozens of aquaculture regions. Our goal is to provide as much information as possible, to guide as many companies as possible with their sourcing decisions and improvement goals. We provide regular sustainability updates to Global Roundtable members on fisheries and aquaculture status” says Dave Martin, Program Director at SFP.
West Africa workstream
“The Global Roundtable wants to better understand the West Africa region through evidence-based information, gathered on the ground, contribute to public discussions, with a focus on food security, and assess the impacts of the industry in Mauritania and Senegal”, Árni M. Mathiesen explains.
In 2021-2022, the Global Roundtable contributed with:
- comments on the FAO West Africa report (8thMarch 2022)
- proposals to the Mauritania FIP management plan (14th March 2022)
- value chain inputs into Mauritania’s FIP meetings (22nd January and 14thDecember 2022)
- gathering third-party collected insights about the marine ingredients industry’s impacts in Senegal and Mauritania (May 2022-still ongoing)
South / Southeast Asia workstream
- A Global Seafood Alliance-led working group focusing on India, with help from Key Traceability and participation from ad hoc contributors, non GRT Members: Devi Seafoods, Grobest, WWF India
- Regular updates from SFP and MarinTrust about Vietnam and Gulf of Thailand
“Interested parties are convened with Roundtable members to encourage support for Indian project(s) to establish whether the market will help support the further development of Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) and encourage the development of processing by-product marine ingredient sources in regions where processing waste is underutilized”, states Global Seafood Alliance’s Steve Hart, Vice President.
In 2022, the Global Roundtable
- engaged with the Indian Marine Products Export Development Authority
- engaged with the Indian Marine Ingredients Association
- started developing a ToRfor a credible FIP encompassing all coastal states/fisheries management as it relates to Indian fishmeal production.
Life Cycle Assessment workstream
An IFFO-led workstream focusing on a GFLI data-in project (GFLI= Global Feed Life Cycle Assessment Institute)
“ The Global Roundtable has expressed a strong interest in assessing the marine ingredients industry’s environmental impacts and in contributing to IFFO’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) work which aims at expanding and updating the publicly available GFLI database with new marine ingredients data. The overall aim of life cycle assessment is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the full (environmental) impact of marine ingredient production and avoid trade-offs or cross-subsidisations of sectors through incomplete sustainability accounting and in doing so ensure that all ingredients are being compared using a comparable metrics system” says Dr Brett Glencross, IFFO’s Technical Director.
In 2022, the Global Roundtable confirmed that it would contribute to a GFLI data-in project, with data collection starting in 2023.
New marine raw materials
IFFO-led engagement with SINTEF’s SFI Harvest research team focusing on pioneering lower-trophic fisheries with innovations to unlock the blue bioeconomic potential
