GSA sees growing demand for BAP certification from China's domestic seafood market

The Global Seafood Alliance issued new Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certifications to 29 Chinese facilities in 2022.

Those certifications included nine processing plants, two new feed mills, and a hatchery in China, GSA China Market Development Director Xin Wang said. She said her organization is confident there will be continued strong demand for eco-label certification for operators targeting the domestic Chinese seafood market in 2023.

“The good thing is, despite of Covid impact, we hear increasing interest from the domestic market,” Wang told SeafoodSource. “We now have more than 20 potential facilities showing strong interest to be certified next year, all supported by the domestic market. And the feedback from Chinese endorsers also shows that the BAP logo does help with their sales growth. That echoes the results of our Chinese market survey. So, yes, we’re very positive about the future of the Chinese market.”

Wang said she expects more Chinese plants processing wild-caught species like cod and haddock to pursue certification under GSA’s new Best Seafood Practices program.

“At farm level, of course, we still have traditionally exported species like tilapia, shrimp, and scallop. In the meantime, we see great potential in species mainly consumed in China, like snakehead fish, largemouth bass, hairy crab, and bullfrog," she said. "Many of those species are sold live, without any processing, through BAP endorsers.”

Endorsers include retailers Dingdong Maicai and Hema Xiansheng – currently, retailers or foodservice companies are not directly eligible for BAP certification.

The Global Seafood Alliance’s BAP third-party certification program grew 8.6 percent in 2021, ending the year with 3,169 BAP-certified facilities in six continents and 39 countries, up from 2,918 BAP-certified facilities at the end of 2020, according to the organization.

Photo courtesy of Global Seafood Alliance