Posted on October, 04 2012

4 October 2012, Singapore – Consumers will now have more choices for sustainable frozen seafood. Leading seafood products provider Golden Fresh has joined the WWF Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group and commits to improve its sourcing of sustainably harvested seafood for the Singapore market.

With help from WWF Singapore, Golden Fresh will gradually substitute overexploited seafood with sustainably harvested alternatives, as recommended by WWF and certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), for sale in Singapore.

Golden Fresh currently supplies Pacific West, its premium brand of frozen products, to major retail chains such as Fairprice, Sheng Siong, Shop & Save etc in Singapore. This includes supermarket chain Cold Storage, that had earlier joined the WWF Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group. Cold Storage took steps to stop the sale of shark’s fin and other shark products and introduce sustainable seafood in its outlets nationwide in September 2011.

“Sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of our future generations. We recognise that promoting eco-label products in South East Asia is not easy mainly due to the lack of awareness. It is sad to note that environmental conservation has not gained wide acceptance in the region as compared to the developed countries in the west. The success of our collaboration with WWF and MSC will be dependent on how much we are able to raise awareness among the consumers in Malaysia & Singapore” Says Earn Saw, CEO, Golden Fresh.

Golden Fresh’s participation in the WWF Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group forms a unique multi-stakeholder partnership between seafood suppliers, retailers, WWF, and the MSC to create suitable market conditions for certified sustainable seafood in Singapore.

“Golden Fresh’s commitment will make sustainably harvested seafood more readily available for consumers in Singapore. WWF Singapore hopes more like-minded companies will come forward to join the Sustainable Seafood Group, giving consumers more options that will help safeguard fish populations and protect the marine environment in the long run,” said Ms Elaine Tan, CEO, WWF Singapore.

Taking the partnership a step further, Golden Fresh and WWF Singapore will reach out to the public through a series of roadshows held in Cold Storage outlets from 5 to 7 October, from 10am to 9pm. Consumers will be able to sample Golden Fresh’s MSC-certified products and stand to win prizes with purchase of such products.

An average of 100,000 tons of seafood is consumed each year in Singapore, making it one of the biggest seafood consumers in the Asia-Pacific region. Most of this is imported from the Coral Triangle, the world’s most diverse marine environment and one of WWF’s Global Initiatives.

The WWF Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group was launched in April 2011 and provides businesses with the guidance they need to source and promote sustainable seafood while also playing a role in protecting the marine environment.

About World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore

WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with almost five million supporters and a global network active in more than 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. www.wwf.sg

About Golden Fresh

Golden Fresh Sdn Bhd is a major seafood processor with value-added seafood products annual turnover of 9,000 tonnes. Our flagship brand Pacific West, is sold throughout the Asia pacific, Oceania, the Middle East, Europe and South Africa. Products are made available through world class retailers, importers, restaurants and fast foods outlets.

Golden Fresh is the first Malaysian seafood processor to be awarded the coveted `Chain of Custody’ certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for its commitment towards environmentally friendly and sustainable fisheries.

For more information about Pacific West, logon to www.pacificwestfoods.com

About Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit standards programme set up in 1999 to help transform the seafood market to a sustainable basis. The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabelling programme for wild-capture fisheries consistent with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation Guidelines for the Eco-labelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries.

Certified fisheries currently land over seven million metric tonnes of seafood annually – close to eight per cent of the total harvest from wild capture fisheries. Worldwide, more than 15,000 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel. www.msc.org

For more details, please contact:

Karen Lin
Communications Manager
WWF Singapore
Email: klin@wwf.sg
Tel: +65 6730 8115
Hp: +65 9623 0355