'Sustainable' certification for Pacific cod expected soon

The MSC seal on seafood verifies that the fish came from a sustainable fishery, an increasingly important factor for European sales, said Larry Cotter, executive director of the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association, one of several major entities engaged in the Pacific cod fishery.

The MSC sustainability label is also important to an increasing number of U.S. retailers, including Walmart and Whole Foods, which have committed to buying seafood only from sustainable fisheries. MSC, based in London, has the world's main certification program for sustainable seafoods.

Premium prices for MSC-certified Pacific cod could be 3 percent to 5 percent higher than non-certified fish, according to one seafood trade publication.

"Europe is big on MSC products and it is important for pollock. I assume it will be important for cod as well, so I would say it's a plus for us," Cotter said.

The cod fishery in Alaska is carried out with longline, pot, trawl and jig gear. Millions of metric tons of the fish are harvested annually, and it is marketed in a variety of products worldwide, including fillet cod products and salt cod in parts of southern Europe and Brazil.

The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, led by director Jim Browning, formed a working group in 2006, and chose Moody Marine International to do the necessary assessment of the fishery to get certified as sustainable.

By 2007, the foundation had worked out a cost-sharing agreement with those engaged in the Pacific cod fisheries in Alaska and contracted with Moody for a full assessment.

The final draft report written by Moody Marine was posted on the MSC Web site Dec. 24. Anyone wishing to file objections to certification had 15 working days.

If there were no objections filed, all sectors of the fishery were to become certified.

"We think the certifier, Moody Marine, has done an excellent job with the assessment report and has been very thorough in its assessment of their report of all sectors of the cod fishery," Browning said.