Shoreline Café at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town has become the first restaurant in Africa that is expected to pursue Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. From shortlisted restaurants that were able to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable seafood sourcing, Shoreline Café was the lucky recipient of a prize offered by the MSC, to cover their chain of custody or traceability certification costs.
If successfully certified, Shoreline Café will join other well-known restaurants such as celebrity chef Raymond Blanc’s Michelin-starred restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxford and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurants in London and Amsterdam, where certified sustainable seafood dishes are already on the menus.
On Wednesday the MSC hosted 35 invited guests to a participatory lunch with celebrity chef Jenny “Giggling Gourmet” Morris at her Cape Town venue, CooksPlayground™. Following an introduction by MSC Southern Africa Programme Manager Martin Purves, Jenny demonstrated mouth-watering recipes with seafood not commonly found on our restaurant menus – Argentinian scallops, wild Alaskan salmon, Danish blue mussels, Pacific albacore tuna and rock lobster from the remote island of Tristan da Cunha.
Hake from South Africa’s trawl fishery was prepared by guests. Often overlooked, this mainstay of the South African seafood diet is in fact a highly prized whitefish globally, with firm flesh suitable for many recipes.
Amid growing concern regarding the world’s fisheries, and despite the variety of seafood on offer, organisers made sure that all fish items used in the lunch had one thing in common: that they were sourced from fisheries certified using the world’s most rigorous environmental sustainability standard for wild-caught fish.
Martin Purves says, “Through the MSC’s Chain of Custody certification, restaurant patrons can be assured not only of the sustainability of their seafood dish but also that it is fully traceable from the boat to their plate.”
Overfishing is one of the most serious environmental concerns facing humankind today and issues of seafood sustainability are complex.
“Even with the right information, consumers can still find it difficult to make the right choices, but consumer demands also act as an extremely powerful incentive for better fisheries management,” says MSC Southern Africa Commercial and Communications Manager Michael Marriott. “Through certification and ecolabelling, the MSC works with fisheries, seafood companies, scientists, conservation groups and the public to promote the best environmental choice in seafood, helping everyone to be part of the seafood solution.”
Certified fisheries are recognised for their good practices by the distinctive “fish with a tick” ecolabel. This ecolabel, which appears on consumer products, guarantees sustainability and traceability back to the fishery that caught it. It is strictly controlled and can only be used by certified fisheries, or by processors, distributors and food service outlets that have undergone a third party traceability audit.
The MSC ecolabel is underwritten by a thorough, independent and science-based assessment process, which was explained by Martin Purves. The rigour and credibility underpinning this standard and methodology has, since 1999, helped to create a global market for sustainable seafood that today accounts for 8% of total wild-capture landings. As well as helping more consumers make sustainable seafood choices, there is now growing evidence that certification is driving positive change in the way the world’s oceans are fished.
In South Africa there is one certified fishery, 48 MSC-labelled products available in supermarkets, and 11 importers/processors and distributors licensed to sell MSC-certified seafood. Until now though, in the restaurant and food service sector, the cost of certification and lack of variety have often been cited as reasons to avoid such engagement.
The MSC’s local office wants to change this thinking. Restaurants that were invited to attend Wednesday’s lunch were all identified as having active sustainable sourcing and training policies, but to stimulate further commitment and to bring MSC to South Africa’s diners, the MSC pledged to work with and fund one that could best demonstrate their commitment.
In the end, the draw came down to four: The Black Marlin, Shoreline Café, Bertha’s Restaurant, and Dunes, all iconic seafood restaurants along the scenic routes in and around Cape Town.
Two Oceans Aquarium Communications and Sustainability Manager Helen Lockhart says, “We are thrilled with the recognition we have received from the MSC with regards to the sustainable seafood initiatives ... From the outset, we established Shoreline Café as a restaurant that serves only Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) green-listed seafood species.
“As an aquarium we are very much aware of the state of fish stocks around the globe and therefore it is imperative that we lead by example and raise awareness ... and educate our visitors. Our vision is to foster love, respect and understanding of our oceans to inspire support for their future well-being. We cannot do this effectively or with credibility if any of our own operations impact negatively on the marine environment. We look forward to working with MSC to establish Shoreline Café as the first MSC-certified restaurant in Africa”.
Dr Samantha Petersen, manager of WWF’s Sustainable Fisheries Programme, says, “We are very excited about Shoreline Café, a SASSI participating restaurant, possibly becoming the first MSC-certified restaurant in Africa. The SASSI Restaurant Participation Scheme has led to increased awareness of the importance of seafood sustainability among the seafood industry and consumers alike.”
For further information about the Marine Stewardship Council contact:
Michael Marriott
Tel: 021 551 0620
Email: Michael.Marriott@msc.org
www.msc.org
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organisation set up to promote solutions to the problem of overfishing. The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabelling programme for wild-capture fisheries consistent with the ISEAL Alliance Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the United Nations FAO guidelines for fisheries certification. The FAO Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries require that credible fishery certification and ecolabelling schemes include:
- Objective, third-party fishery assessment utilising scientific evidence;
- Transparent processes with built-in stakeholder consultation and objection procedures; and
- Standards based on the sustainability of target species, ecosystems and management practices.
The MSC has offices in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, the Hague, Edinburgh, Berlin and Cape Town.
In total, around 250 fisheries are engaged in the MSC programme with 98 certified and 132 under assessment. Another 40 to 50 fisheries are in confidential pre-assessment. Together the fisheries record annual catches of more than 5-million tons of seafood. Of fish for human consumption, they represent more than 42% of the world’s wild salmon catch, 40% of the world’s prime whitefish catch and 18% of the world’s spiny lobster catch. Worldwide, more than 7 000 seafood products resulting from the certified fisheries bear the blue MSC ecolabel.
The Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) was initiated by WWF South Africa in collaboration with other networking partners in November 2004 in order to inform and educate all participants in the seafood trade, from wholesalers to restaurateurs through to seafood lovers. The initiative builds on an earlier project started in the KwaZulu-Natal, which sought to educate restaurant dealers about the Marine Living Resources Act and other marine conservation issues.
In recognition of the fact that developing a sustainable seafood industry requires a holistic approach, one which addresses all aspects along the chain of custody, from the fisherman’s hook all the way to the final product delivered to the consumer at their local fish shop or restaurant, the WWF Sustainable Fisheries Programme was created in 2007. This new programme brought together both the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) and the Responsible Fisheries Programme (RFP), effectively closing the loop from boat to plate.
