QUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

We provide quality products that meet our customers’ needs and the strictest food safety standards.

Our company has been IFS and BRC certified for many years. These standards from IFS- International Featured Standards and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) – a British trade association of retailers – are among the strictest standards within the food industry.

Audits for these standards are conducted annually by an independent certification body.

Northseafood is certified for various quality and sustainability requirements. On this page you can download a copy of our certificates to use for your quality system.

Certificates

ASC certificaat
BRCGS certificaat
FDA logo
IFS Food logo
MSC ecolabel
Organic certificaat
Food Safety

Northseafood has been certified by the strictest food safety standards of BRC and IFS for many years.

Northseafood is also certified to process organic fish and sustainably caught (MSC) and sustainably farmed (ASC) fish products.

Food Quality

Northseafood provides high quality food products, both in terms of technical quality and nutritional value, so that we meet the needs of our customers and the expectations of consumers.  In terms of technical quality, our products meet the agreed specifications. Regarding nutritional quality, we guarantee that our fish and seafood products are good sources of high-quality proteins, important minerals, vitamins and omega 3.

Sustainability

At Northseafood, we know better than anyone how important it is to treat fish stocks and nature with care...

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Environmental care

Northseafood minimizes the impact of its activities on nature and the environment and operates in harmony with the environment...

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Animal welfare

Northseafood is also certified for organic fish. Organic fish is farmed with respect for animal welfare and...

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Social responsibility

Protecting the safety, health and human rights of our employees...

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Sustainability

Like no other, Northseafood knows how important it is to treat fish stocks and nature with care. Fish is therefore purchased as much as possible from vessels that practice sustainable fishing techniques. Often also provided with the Marine Stewardship Council certificate (MSC). In addition to sustainably caught fish, Northseafood is also certified to produce and sell sustainably farmed fish according to ASC. (Aquaculture Stewardship Council).

Sustainable catch and responsible farming

Many fish processed at Northseafood come from certified sustainable catch with the MSC label or from responsibly farmed fish with the ASC label. Our product offering includes a wide range of products certified to independent standards for responsible farming and sustainable catch, such as ASC and MSC.

MSC – Marine Stewardship Council – is an independent label that guarantees that fish have been caught sustainably.

MSC aims to protect the oceans and ensure there is enough fish for both this and future generations.

ASC – Aquaculture Stewardship Council – is an independent label for responsibly farmed seafood. Fish with the ASC label comes from farms that limit their impact on water, nature and the environment, take good care of their employees and are considerate of local residents.

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Environmental care

Northseafood minimizes the impact of its activities on nature and the environment and operates in harmony with the environment, by not depleting natural resources and ensuring not to use materials or substances that can cause lasting damage. Northseafood has its own water treatment plant, which purifies all water used for production and cleaning before it reaches the water treatment plant in Tollebeek.

 

Northseafood’s plants are insulated in such a way that virtually no ambient noise is produced. Further reduction of energy consumption and of the ecological footprint is also empathically a target of Northseafood. Our installations are regularly inspected and certified.

 

In order to reduce energy consumption, Northseafood uses solar panels. As a result, we are able to use the energy generated for both plans.

 

Superheaters have been installed on the cooling/freezing installations with the aim of reducing energy consumption.

 

Residual heat from the cooling/freezing process is used to preheat the water for cleaning.

 

Waste that can be reused such as cardboard, plastic is collected and disposed of separately.

 

Northseafood has become a sponsor of KIMO’s Fishing For Litter project as of 2020.

Hereby a link to the website of KIMO:

Click here

ANIMAL WELFARE

Northseafood is also certified for Organic fish. Organic fish is farmed in fish farms with respect for animal welfare and the environment. To name just a few of the requirements: an organic fish lives in clean water, has enough space to swim, eats mainly organic fish food and must not be given artificial hormones to spawn.

 

All our items are also carefully marked with origin and other relevant data for proper and fast tracking when questioning the products delivered.

 

The main challenge for global food production is the limited availability of natural resources, such as production areas, fresh water and energy. At the same time, greenhouse gas missions will also have to be reduced.

 

Leading the Blue Revolution

 

Seas and oceans offer the best opportunity to meet the growing demand for healthy and sustainable food. Our planet is 70% water, but only 2% of the global food supply comes from the ocean. Yet we must also keep in mind that these resources are not inexhaustible.

If we want to ensure that future generations can also enjoy a delicious piece of fish, we must invest in sustainable fishing and fish farming: Leading the Blue Revolutions is therefore Northseafood’s vision.

 

Fish is one of the most efficient sources of animal protein: to produce 1kg of edible fish requires much less food than to produce the same amount of meat.

 

Fish has a significantly smaller carbon footprint than meat.

 

Social Responsibility

One of our guiding principles is “People.

Protecting the safety, health and human rights of our employees is a core value for Northseafood . We want to ensure safe and meaningful work for our employees.

To operate successfully and to maintain good relationships with the local communities in which we work, the safety, self-respect and personal pride of our people should never be in question.

We believe it is important to be good to our employees and to respect their rights. This is expressed, among other things, by complying with the reporting system for abuses (House of Whistleblowers Act) and the criteria of the SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit) 4-Pillar.

SMETA 4-Pillar was developed by the AIM (Association des Industries Marque) to go beyond the requirements of the standard SMETA audit, one of the most widely used methods of auditing companies for ethical criteria.

SMETA 4-Pillar is a joint audit model that emphasizes environmental and business integrity.

SMETA 4-Pillar has been adopted by the members of AIM Progress, a growing group of consumer goods manufacturers. The SMETA 4-Pillar methodology uses the ETI Base Code and local legislation as benchmarks and consists of 4 modules:

– Health and safety (ETI)
– Labor standards (ETI)
– Environment
– Business ethics