The Marine Stewardship Council announced that Pescafria-Pesquera Rodríguez has been awarded MSC sustainable fishing certification, making PESCAFRIA the first Spanish fishery and the first European Union Barents Sea cod fishery to be awarded this distinction. The announcement was made at a press conference attended by Basque government representatives Jon Azkue, Deputy Regional Minister for Fisheries and the Food Industry, and Jokin Díaz, Director for Fisheries and Aquaculture; Pescafria Manager Francisco Rodríguez; MSC Regional Director for Europe Nicolas Guichoux, and Laura Rodríguez, MSC Spain and Portugal Country Manager.
MSC runs the leading international environmental certification for wild-fish fisheries. Over one year, a group of experts from independent, accredited certification body Food Certification International scrutinised and analysed Pescafria’s cod fishing operations, assessing the fishery on the basis of the three MSC environmental principles with regard to sustainable fish stocks (in this case, northeast Arctic cod), environmental impact on the marine ecosystem, and the effective management of fishing operations.
For PESCAFRIA, the certificate is given in recognition of a strategy based on professionalism and on respect for marine resources. Cod fished by PESCAFRIA-Pesquera Rodríguez can now be sold with the MSC ecolabel, already widely-sought by consumers in northern European markets and increasingly so in Spain also.
PESCAFRIA-Pesquera Rodríguez SA, which markets its products under the PESCAFRIA brand, was founded in 1940. A family-owned company, it has headquarters in the Basque Country and in Galicia. PESCAFRIA holds 27.50% of the Spanish cod quota, which translates into approximately 4000 tonnes, the largest national quota. The UK is the company’s major market for seafood products and frozen cod fillets and PESCAFRIA also exports to France, Holland, Norway and Portugal, among other markets. A small part of their production, including salt cod and frozen cod fillets, is marketed in Spain.
