Crustacean Welfare Policy and Summary

As stated in the seafood policy of Young’s Seafood Ltd, animal welfare is an important business focus area and included in our Fish for Life initiative. This supplementary document aims to add some detail on current project work and reporting specifically on crustaceans and is relevant for all supply to Young’s Seafood Ltd and Greenland Seafood from all geographies. Sofina Foods Europe has board level representation for CSR (including crustacean welfare) and combined responsibility, development and review within its CSR team. This team includes a dedicated sustainability manager with aquatic animal welfare training to help support supplier welfare training and policy implementation.

As a business Sofina Foods Europe handle various crustaceans including farmed warm water prawns and wild caught langoustine that is typically sold breaded as scampi. Our current full list, stunning method and production / catch method is below**: 

**   The species list and stated information are correct at the time of publication but may change as additional future business opportunities or contracts are gained.

We don’t purchase, market, handle or sell to others any live crustaceans.  

Wild Capture

Youngs Fish for Life policy principle 10 is Environmental Stewardship and work on this principle is a commitment to reduce unwanted bycatch in all crustacean fisheries we source from. An example within our brown crab supply is the use of escape panels as detailed here – https://www.orkneyfisheries.com/green-development-project. Our lobster fishery also requires escape panels both for undersized animals and lost pots. Additionally, we require the use of Nordmann grid or equivalent in cold water prawn fisheries to reduce bycatch and our crustacean fisheries implement the Global Ghost Gear Best Practice Framework to reduce the risk of Ghost Gear continuing to catch crustaceans after being lost. We are founders and board members of Fisheries innovation and Sustainability (FIS) which has included research projects on by-catch reduction including Project FIS007 – Post-catch survivability of under-sized Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) to improve the welfare of unwanted crustacean catch.  

We are members of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain and are supportive of developing codes around the handling of crustaceans and expect them to be implemented when complete. We require that all species are kept conditions that best support the welfare of the animals such as light, water quality, temperature, salinity, etc. These requirements cover catching, storage and transport. All transport should be direct, optimised for the specific species and any live storage as short as possible.As stated in our Seafood policy, animal welfare is an important business focus area and included in our Fish for Life initiative. This supplementary document aims to add some detail on current project work and reporting specifically on crustaceans and is relevant for all supply to Sofina Foods Europe from all geographies. Sofina Foods Europe has board level representation for CSR (including crustacean welfare) and combined responsibility, development and review within its CSR team. This team includes a dedicated sustainability manager with aquatic animal welfare training to help support supplier welfare training and policy implementation.   

Sofina Foods Europe has a commitment to achieve no live crustacean mutilation for all species we buy. We do not allow the declawing of crabs while they are alive, and our supplier will only buy whole crab. Brown Crab claw nicking is a process undertaken in some supply chains to avoid the animals damaging each other – and Sofina Foods Europe would supply from alternatives if commercially available.

Stunning and Slaughter

We require all our UK Brown Crab and Lobster to be electrically stunned before slaughter and have ensured that has been in place with new suppliers that we engaged with in 2024. 

We require our 100% of our warm water prawns to be stunned before slaughter. To improve this, we are working on increasing the % using electrical stunning with a target of achieving 100% electrical stunning as soon as we can. We are appreciative of work by the Shrimp Welfare Project in this area. Our progress has seen 2 major shrimp suppliers commissioning / installing electrical shrimp stunners at farms over recent months, so the % of electrically stunned shrimp will increase in future years towards our target of 100%. 

In wild caught Langoustine, we are working closely on handling improvement on vessels, involving equipment for removing the tails. As part of this project, we are working with an equipment manufacturer to include an electrical stunner prior the processing.

Aquaculture

We only purchase farmed crustaceans from certified farming operations with either Global Gap, ASC or Best Aquaculture Practices. We engage with these standard holders and support future developments for increased crustacean welfare requirements within them. For our farmed crustaceans we expect and require that species are kept conditions that best support the welfare of the animals such as light, water quality, temperature, salinity, etc. These requirements cover farming, storage and transport. 100% of our farmed shrimp are harvested at pond side and so all live Shrimp (whiteleg and Black Tiger) transport is well under one hour.

It is a Sofina Foods Europe target to have all farmed shrimp are from broodstock that have not been subject to eyestalk ablation. We have made great progress on this target and are currently at 100% of Youngs supply, which was achieved in the previous 12 months up from 80%.

Supplier Management

We undertake a full supplier audit program, and this would include, where relevant, farms, hatcheries and fisheries to ensure both the good welfare of crustaceans and the integrity of animal welfare claims. If a policy requirement is not being meet, we always try and resolve this with the supplier and overcome the issue, but for critical issues on brand integrity and specifications not being met a range of more serious consequences could be taken or even ultimately a supplier delist.

Sofina Foods Europe has briefed this policy out to relevant teams internally and with suppliers to cover teams that are on supplier sites where live animals are handled. This included a commercial team visit to a shrimp farm to see the electrical stunner in operation and a crab factory to see a different model of electrical stunner and to learn its benefits to crustacean welfare across multiple species.