Anova Food, LLC., North America’s leading sushi-quality tuna company, will enter into a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) full assessment for its premier Fair Trade fishery in North Buru Island, making it the first handline tuna fishery to do so in Indonesia. Anova worked closely with its processing partner, Harta Samudra, local NGO, Masyarakat Dan Perikanan Indonesia (MDPI), and the North Buru Fair Trade Committee to compile documentation for the rigorous MSC assessment, with a site visit scheduled for late March where the Compliance Assessment Body (CAB) will meet with government representatives and other stakeholders.
Since the first Fair Trade certification in 2015, Anova has continued to expand the program throughout its Indonesian supply chains. In 2018, the volume of Fair Trade tuna shipped to the U.S. market increased by 75 percent, returning more than US$100,000 in Fair Trade premiums back to fishing communities. The fishery in North Buru Island has been part of a fishery improvement project (FIP) since 2011, in which Anova took a proactive role by supporting the implementation of rigorous port sampling and data collection programs that met international standards for scientific fisheries data requirements.
