Partnerships

Leading SeaBOS forward

As a company that takes a science-based approach to sustainability, we are proud to be part of the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), which brings together eight of the world’s largest aquaculture companies with leading scientists to support sustainability and a healthy ocean. This year, Helene Ziv-Douki, Leader of Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health – EMEA & Global Salmon, was elected chair of SeaBOS and commissioned an assessment of the organization to see how it can be even more impactful in the coming years.

Dave Robb, director of sustainability for Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health’s aqua nutrition business, continued to lead SeaBOS Task Force I on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and labor abuse at sea, where work in 2024 focused on aligning SeaBOS’s supply chain standards with those of certification programs such as MarinTrust. We also continued to support the West Coast Africa Keystone Project, which focused in 2024 on scientific work to assess supply chain and social risks as the basis for improvements in 2025.

Continuing to advocate for progress in the North Atlantic

The North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) is taking a market-led approach to FIPs, with supply chain businesses including Cargill committing to sourcing more sustainable seafood and marine ingredients. As blue whiting is significant for us in the region, Cargill’s Dave Robb is chairing the sub-group on this species. We are working with regulators, catching organizations and other buyers of fish to solve a fundamental challenge: The coastal states surrounding the North Atlantic FIP have not come to an agreement on dividing up fishing quotas within scientific regulation. This is driving overfishing, and the FIP will expire in October 2026, making the need for action among governments more urgent than ever.

A first for ASC in Canada

To support our customers producing seafood certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), we are gaining ASC certification for various feed mills in our network. In late 2024, our mill in Surrey, Canada, was the first facility in Canada’s aqua feed industry to achieve this rigorous certification. This year, we are working to get mills in several other countries certified to help our customers meet ASC’s October 2025 deadline requiring ASC-certified farmed seafood to use only ASC-certified feed. For example, our aqua feed mills in Norway and Chile received ASC certification in early 2025. Read more about our ASC certifications.

Growing the future of sustainable shrimp aquaculture

Ecuador has rapidly become the world’s largest shrimp producer and exporter. The Sustainable Shrimp Partnership (SSP) is a pre-competitive ecosystem of Ecuadorian producers and stakeholders committed to transforming shrimp aquaculture by proving that shrimp can be raised responsibly through promoting best practices for all aspects of the value chain.  In 2024, we joined the SSP to collaborate on achieving this goal and growing the future of global shrimp aquaculture. With these objectives in mind, our product line in Ecuador provides a solution to help farmers achieve their productivity goals more efficiently – using fewer inputs, maintaining healthier shrimp, and protecting water quality.

Tools for measuring and reducing carbon

In 2024, Cargill joined the IDH Aquaculture Working Group on Environmental Footprint, which is working with partners all along the supply chain to significantly reduce their carbon footprint for species such as tilapia, pangasius, and shrimp. Members in the coalition are working together to find the best ways to achieve this objective, including co-developing an online carbon footprint measurement tool that’s easy for any company to use and provides a standardized approach to measuring carbon.