It is our responsibility to avoid buying any illegal landed cod. The control of landings is the responsibility of the local authorities.
Therefore, Espersen continuously develops and improves its measures to eliminate cod from unregistered catches. In this context, confidence and traceability are key words to achieve the goal. A Supplier Agreement was introduced in 2006 meaning that suppliers of fresh or frozen cod on demand must be able to present a third party auditor report stating that Espersen does not receive fish exceeding the quota.
This Supplier Agreement was in 2007 replaced by a control instructions agreed on by the European Fish Processors and Traders Association (AIPCE) based on our Supplier Agreement.
In addition to this, Espersen in 2007 decided to introduce annual audits by independent companies of its Polish suppliers of fresh cod. The purpose of the audits is to establish that Espersen’s suppliers, first-hand buyers, report all quantities purchased directly from the fishermen to the Central Register (CMR) in Poland.
Audits have been executed by KPMG covering the audit of three to four Polish cod supplying companies every year – picked out randomly by KPMG itself.
For 2007 KPMG concluded that all the reviewed transactions were reported to the Fishery Monitoring Centre (Centrum Monitorowania Rybo³ówstwa) in Gdynia. However, the introduction of the Control Instruction and audits has excluded two Polish companies from Espersen´s supplier list as they could not fulfil the terms completely.
For 2008 KPMG for one of our suppliers found that a significant quantity of purchased cod was not reported correctly to the Central Register in Poland. The supplier has been informed about the results and Espersen has made it clear, that this behaviour is totally unacceptable. As a consequence we are going to have KPMG auditing this supplier again in the near future. If no improvement will be seen, Espersen will stop working with this supplier, which the supplier has been told.
Even though we see an improved control of landings in Poland, Espersen will maintain our focus on legal cod landings; Espersen has embarked on a continuous process with more initiatives. Following KPMG’s recommendation, suppliers is expected to submit further information allowing tracing the first-hand sales of all cod supplied to Espersen to the Central Register. As a minimum, this information should include: identification number of document of first sales, date of discharge, register number of vessel. The information may be included in the documentation which normally supports all sales transactions (e.g. sales invoice, trade identification document or certificate for sea fish).
