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 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 Europe source various crustaceans including warm water prawns from aquaculture and wild caught langoustine that is typically sold breaded as scampi. Our current full list and production / catch method is below**:

Brown Crab (Cancer pagurus) – all wild caught in creels
Whiteleg Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) – all from aquaculture farms
Black Tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) – all from aquaculture farms
Langoustine (Nephrops norvegicus) – all wild caught by otter trawl or creel caught (<3%)
Cold water prawn (Pandalus borealis) – all wild caught by otter trawl

** 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

Sofina Europe don’t purchase, market or sell to others any live crustaceans and do not own or operate any fishing vessels or aquaculture farms.

Wild Capture

Young’s Fish for Life policy principle 10 is Environmental Stewardship and work on this principle includes bycatch reduction in all crustacean fisheries. An example within brown crab supply is the use of escape panels as detailed here – https://www.orkneyfisheries.com/green-development-project. Additionally, Young’s Seafood Ltd 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 Initiative Best Practice Framework to reduce the risk of Ghost Gear continuing to catch crustaceans after being lost. Young’s Seafood Ltd 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.

Young’s Seafood Ltd 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. Young’s Seafood Ltd 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 catching, storage and transport. All transport should be direct and any live storage as short as possible.

Young’s Seafood Ltd do not allow the declawing of crabs while they are alive, and our supplier will only buy whole crab.

Stunning and Slaughter

Young’s Seafood Ltd require all our UK Brown Crab and Lobster to be electrically stunned before slaughter and this was 100% achieved many years ago.

Young’s Seafood Ltd require our 100% of our warm water prawns to be stunned before slaughter. To improve this, Young’s Seafood Ltd are working on increasing the % using electrical stunning with a target of achieving 100% electrical stunning as soon as we can. Young’s Seafood Ltd are appreciative of work by the Shrimp Welfare Project in this area. Our progress on this includes an agreement with a major shrimp supplier to instal electrical stunning equipment by the end of 2023.

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

Aquaculture

Young’s Seafood Ltd only purchase farmed crustaceans from approved and named aquaculture operations with either Global Gap, ASC or Best Aquaculture Practices certification. Young’s Seafood Ltd engage with these standard holders and support future developments for increased crustacean welfare requirements within them. For our farmed crustaceans Young’s Seafood ltd 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. Our farmed shrimp are all harvested at pond side and so all live animal transport is well under one hour.

It is a Young’s Seafood Ltd 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 over 80% with our current supply base on an agreement to be 100% of Young’s Seafood Ltd supply by the end of 2023.

Supplier Management

Young’s Seafood Ltd 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. Crustacean welfare requirements are added to supplier specifications where applicable.