Introduction to the ASC Feed Certification
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council’s (ASC) Feed Certification comes at a crucial moment for the seafood and aquaculture industry. More than 70% of farmed seafood (excluding algae) relies on feed — and life cycle assessments have shown that feed can account for up to 90% of the environmental impacts of aquaculture production. The majority of these impacts occur during the growing and harvesting of raw materials necessary to produce the feed — and often exact consequences far beyond the aquaculture farm itself. This means that deforestation, land conversion, wild fisheries management, and terrestrial agriculture all have a role to play in the production of aquaculture feed. Ensuring sustainable and responsible feed production is thus critical for reducing environmental harm while supporting the livelihoods of millions who work within the global seafood and aquaculture industry.
With scientific research suggesting global fish and shellfish consumption will skyrocket in the coming decades, the aquaculture sector has been expanding to meet this growing demand. And with this expansion comes the need for aquaculture feed producers to maintain high standards of social responsibility, legal compliance, and environmental sustainability. The ASC Feed Certification addresses these issues by providing a rigorous framework that mills can use to assure the market of their adherence to best practices while also enhancing due diligence throughout the entire supply chain.
In this blog, the SCS Sustainable Seafood & Aquaculture teams offer an overview of the ASC Feed Certification requirements, discuss some of the most important components, and share benefits and challenges for businesses achieving certification.
Benefits of Achieving Certification
Backed by the ASC Feed Standard — the first aquaculture standard to evaluate all feed ingredients and address their impacts during production and manufacturing — ASC Feed Certification offers four primary benefits: ensure market access, demonstrate environmental responsibility, meet global seafood demands, and drive positive change across the entire supply chain underpinning the global seafood and aquaculture industry.
ASC Feed Certification ensures best practices for feed mills within areas of the supply chain that have historically faced difficulty in providing certain assurances — mitigating reputational risks associated with raw marine ingredient sourcing for fish meal and oils, deforestation, and labor practices, for instance — particularly for large buyers in the seafood industry.
As the new certification’s compliance deadline of October 31, 2025 comes into focus, feed suppliers and mills must pay close attention to the new criteria outlined in the ASC Feed Certification — failure to comply with these updated requirements could result in the potential loss of existing ASC claims on shrimp, fin fish, and other fish- and shellfish-based products. Whether by achieving a new certification or updating an existing one, businesses can assure the market of their commitment to sustainable and responsible aquaculture feed production while continuing to meet the ASC Feed Standard requirements.
Key Components of the ASC Feed Certification
Nearly every part of the ASC Feed Standard comes back to reducing risks by bolstering social, legal, and environmental responsibility associated with aquaculture feed production — and this means both for the mill and its specific site operations as well as the greater supply chain. And while ASC Feed Certification includes many rigorous requirements that feed producers must meet, we’d like to focus on what we see as the five most important of those components.
Due Diligence
Due diligence requirements stand at the core of the ASC Feed Standard. And while there are not as many indicators for the due diligence requirements as there are, for example, confirming the social performance of the mill and the workers, the certification itself always comes back to due diligence. Relative to the certification, due diligence requirements mark how the ASC is handling the complexity of the supply chain and the number of ingredients that go into the feed mill — without requiring auditors to conduct multiple, month-long audits.
The Four Pathways to Achieve Due Diligence
The ASC Feed Certification offers four pathways to achieve due diligence: the country score card, sectoral analysis, ingredient manufacturer assessment, and certification.
The country score card and certification are two of the four pathways. It’s helpful to discuss these pathways together first as both rely on existing information that is readily accessible to demonstrate low risk for a certain due diligence category. (We will discuss the other two pathways in the next section.) The country score card and certification pathways’ reliance on existing information means that mills won’t have to do additional research or operational labor to demonstrate low risk.
The ASC Feed Standard Country Score Card is a document published by the ASC that lists countries and their social, legal, and environmental scores for both marine and plant ingredients. Mill operators can search by the country of origin and confirm product scores. For example, a mill operator can peruse the country score card and see that Norway’s fish meal products are considered low social risk. Essentially, the ASC has already done this basic research to determine the risk factor for this ingredient and its country of origin and compiled it within the country score card.
The fourth pathway — certification — means that feed mills can choose to source from certified fisheries or other certified commodities. Marine ingredients, for example, that come from a fishery certified against the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries standard, would qualify that ingredient as ‘low risk’ for legal and environmental concerns.
But because the MSC does not have a social component in its standard, this highlights one of the important complexities of the ASC Feed Certification: that individual ingredients may need to have more than one due diligence pathway. One pathway might be used to show low social risk, but a different pathway might be needed to show legal and environmental risk levels. Land-based products such as soy, for example, must come from deforestation-free supply chains, so mills will be responsible for sourcing from appropriate producers.
Either way, the mill must ensure comprehensive due diligence on their supply chains to ensure low risk in social, legal, and environmental categories for all feed ingredients. If sourcing ingredients from another company, the due diligence assessment will need to cover those ingredients, too. The external company or mill, however, will not need to be certified — so long as each can prove that all the ingredients meet the due diligence requirements, which make up the bulk of the critical work associated with achieving certification.
Under the ASC Feed Certification, due diligence is the mechanism that clarifies which ingredients are eligible to be certified and sold. Whether it's the percentage of total ingredients that qualify, or the segregation model utilized to track specific ingredients through the mill to the final aquaculture feed product, the due diligence requirements remain stringent and comprehensive.
The Middle Pathways: Sectoral Analysis & Ingredient Manufacturer Assessment
If the country score card and certification options for verifying due diligence are not feasible or available, mill operators will need to choose the middle two pathways — sectoral analysis and ingredient manufacturer assessment. These options present more complicated routes to achieve due diligence under the ASC Feed Certification, requiring more detailed analyses from feed mills that need to be executed by in-house expertise or by hiring external consultants. This process can be time-consuming and requires specific competencies, which might not be readily available within the existing mill staff.
Conducting a sectoral analysis on social issues related to a fishery, for example, represents one of the more challenging aspects of due diligence. This pathway involves analyzing the ingredients’ origins using specific methodologies to examine both qualitative and quantitative factors, including social, legal, and environmental risks. These methods must also meet competency requirements, such as ensuring competent staff members or external consultants have completed the sectoral analysis. If after the sectoral analysis is completed and the ingredients are found to be low risk across social, legal, and environmental factors, then mill operators must verify these findings, too.
Ingredient manufacturer assessment involves working closely with the manufacturer to determine the risk level of the ingredients, ensuring they meet the ASC standards for low risk in social, legal, and environmental categories. This collaborative process relies on a relationship between the mill using the ingredients and the manufacturer providing ingredients. This process is essential for mills to verify the compliance of their supply chain and the integrity of the feed ingredients — especially if the country score card and certification options are not accessible or possible.
The bottom line for each of the four pathways to achieving due diligence under the ASC Feed Certification has everything to do with being able to prove eligibility for each ingredient — meaning that if an ingredient has proven low risk for social, legal, and environmental considerations, then that ingredient is eligible to be ASC certified. Whether it's segregation or the mass balance approach, the certification process requires this determination of low risk across the board.
Legal Compliance
Performance indicators surrounding legal compliance under the ASC Feed Certification are primarily focused on ensuring feed production complies with all local, national, and international laws concerning environmental management, labor practices, and operational permits.
Because aquaculture feed ingredients may be derived from raw materials associated with many diverse industries and supply chains, achieving legal compliance under the ASC Feed Certification is an important step to ensure all ingredients pass muster.
When considering the number of ingredients used in feed — and then the overlapping and intersecting requirements needed to show social, legal, and environmental risk levels for all marine and terrestrial ingredients — it's important to emphasize how quickly the process of achieving legal compliance can escalate in terms of complexity.
But the effort is worth it. By ensuring legal compliance for every ingredient within the mill’s feed, producers will be able to distinguish themselves in the marketplace and contribute to improved sustainability impacts that can be backed up by measurable data and marketed with verifiable claims.
Due to the international nature of the ASC Feed Standard, the approach to legal compliance involves ensuring adherence to local, national, and international laws. This includes obtaining necessary permits related to land use, property taxes, and operational authorizations from relevant agencies like the Department of Agriculture.
Certification Models
The ASC offers different models of certification, such as mass balance and segregation, which provide flexibility in meeting certification requirements based on ingredient sourcing and traceability. In other words, ASC essentially allows for flexibility around the production of feed occurring at the mill. Certification can be applied to a portion or percentage of the production, allowing certified feed to be supplied to certified farms without the need to certify the entire facility. This incremental approach differs from the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) Standard, which currently requires the certification of the entire feed production facility.
Additional Resources – ASC Programme Center
One of the most beneficial components of the new ASC Feed Certification is the centralized online location known as the ASC Programme Center. This interactive tool contains the documentation that mill operators need to guide your feed mill to ASC certification, including the ASC Feed Standard, the feed interpretation manual, feed requirements for unit of certification (RUoC), and the Feed Certification and Accreditation Requirements (CAR).
When facing uncertainty regarding a specific indicator within the standard, we encourage mill operators to refer to the interpretation manual, which aims to provide clarity and ensure comprehension. For instance, if a mill is preparing for an audit and encounters ambiguity with an indicator, consulting the manual can clarify the intent and spirit of the standard, as well as outline the objectives certification aims to achieve. This resource supports progress in implementing the standard and benefits auditors significantly. As we transition into the second year of the standard, continuous learning is imperative, and the interpretation manual aids in minimizing misinterpretations and aligning with the standard's intent.
The subsequent documents are essential process documents: the Requirements of the Unit of Certification (ROC) and the Certification and Accreditation Requirements (CAR). While these documents are similar, they target different audiences. The ROC document is aimed at feed mills, covering the unit of certification — whatever will be included in the certificate ultimately issued. It outlines the rules for engaging with the ASC system. Conversely, the CAR document is intended for certifiers, detailing how they interact with the system. Topics include contract stipulations between certifiers and feed mills, timelines, severity of non-performances, and deadlines for addressing such non-performances.
SCS: the Most Experienced in ASC Feed Certification
As the first accredited certifier for the ASC Feed Standard, SCS brings unmatched expertise and experience. Our deep involvement in developing and piloting the ASC Feed Standard, combined with our comprehensive knowledge of major farmed species and feed mill production, ensures a thorough and robust audit process. Moreover, SCS' ability to bundle ASC Feed Standard audits with seafood safety and social or labor audits offer a streamlined, efficient approach for businesses seeking to demonstrate their commitment to both sustainability, product safety, and social compliance. This comprehensive service provides your customers with independent assurance that your feed products meet the highest environmental and social criteria.
Have more questions? Be sure to check out our recent webinar where we dig into all these topics covered here plus more specific scenarios posed by audience members. And if you have more questions or concerns about the ASC Feed Certification or the standard that can’t be covered in a blog or webinar, please get in touch with our team today: [email protected].
