The Festival, launched in tandem with World Oceans Day (8 June), and organised in partnership with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), hopes to create a new movement for responsible consumption of seafood by empowering suppliers, retailers, restaurants and consumers to „pick the right catch‟. This means selecting seafood products that have been vetted through stringent standards by Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) or from the green list of the WWF Singapore Seafood Guide.
Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in Asia-Pacific, devouring over 140 million kilogrammes a year. With more than 87% of the world‟s oceans overfished, it is estimated that the world‟s fish stocks will run out by 2048 if we do not act now.
Ms Elaine Tan, CEO of WWF-Singapore, says, “We are excited by the strong support the Festival is getting from the food industry. These businesses are stepping up to make an investment in their future and the ocean‟s future. With over 30 establishments across the island participating in the Festival, it is now easier for consumers to pick the right catch. The only way we can create a sustainable future for our oceans is for all of us to do our part to move the supply chain towards sustainable sources. Businesses and consumers alike need to do this right now, during the Festival and every day after.”
EXCLUSIVE DINING OFFERS
The public can look forward to exclusive “Pick The Right Catch” dining offers centred on sustainable seafood at participating restaurants and hotels. These establishments offer a wide variety of cuisines to cater to all appetites and occasions: from traditional Chinese dishes at private dining restaurant Xi Yan, to North Indian dishes at the classy Tandoor at Holiday Inn Singapore. At Grand Hyatt Singapore, its four restaurants will be serving a tantalising array of local and international dishes including MSC certified prawn noodle soup, MSC certified scallop sushi and sashimi, and ASC certified crispy black tilapia with salted egg yolk. For casual dining in the heartlands, indulge in a delicious sustainable seafood spread at three Bliss Restaurant outlets in Ang Mo Kio, Lavendar and Paya Lebar.
Please refer to the attached annex for the current list of participating businesses and their menus. This information will be continually updated at picktherightcatch.com.
SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING & COOKING
Retail partner Cold Storage has come on board for the Festival by expanding its existing range of MSC certified sustainable seafood products at eight outlets island-wide. Introduced in Singapore for the first time, shoppers can look forward to purchasing wild Patagonian scallops, Asiatic hard clams, Atlantic cod, pink salmon and Alaskan pollock without worry of contributing to the global problem of over-fishing. Cold Storage was in fact, the first supermarket chain in Singapore to initiate a “No Shark‟s Fin” policy and to offer a dedicated section for sustainable seafood at its stores in 2011.
Shoppers can also go to the Festival‟s website to make use of the simple-to-use interactive WWF Singapore Seafood Guide, which includes common Mandarin names and images of seafood varieties, to identify which seafood items to avoid and which are sustainable. With a variety of sustainable seafood recipes such as Oyster Omelette, Calamari Salad and Goan Fish Curry available on picktherightcatch.com, families can tuck into a home-made sustainable seafood feast that is good for the ocean too.
OUTREACH ACTIVITIES
In conjunction with the Festival, there will be marine conservation-themed roadshows and exhibitions during the month of June and beyond across Singapore to educate the public on the pressing need for responsible seafood consumption and long term food security.
Dates and venues are as follows:
IKEA Tampines – 9 to 15 June
Woodlands Regional Library – 13 to 15 June
IKEA Alexandra – 7 to 13 July
Sembawang Shopping Centre – 7 to 13 July
Hougang Mall – 1 to 7 September
IKEA Tampines – 8 to 14 September
IKEA Alexandra – 8 to 14 September
Bedok Mall – 15 to 28 September
WWF-Singapore has also engaged the school community by developing a Student Sustainable Seafood Kit, downloadable from picktherightcatch.com, and by holding a series of school workshops and supermarket tours to empower students with knowledge and grant opportunities to lead the movement back in their schools and communities. Notably, Republic Polytechnic is extending its support for the sustainable seafood movement by designating Oliva – the training kitchen and restaurant for students enrolled at The School of Hospitality – as one of the participating restaurants for SSF.
Ms Elaine Tan elaborates, “The Sustainable Seafood Festival takes a multi-faceted approach to make sustainable seafood a reality for everyone. Our public awareness activities will make it easy for consumers to look out for supermarkets and restaurants that offer sustainable seafood, and we are complementing these outreach activities by working with suppliers to increase the availability and diversity of sustainable products.”
For hi-res visuals and media enquiries, please contact:
Sixth Sense Communications & PR Consultancy Pte Ltd
Chenyze (Wint Hnin Hket), Snr. PR Associate
E: chenyze@sixthsense.com.sg
M: 9753 4871
T: 6423 0096
Carlyn Law, PR Consultant
E: carlyn@sixthsense.com.sg
M: 9362 3626
T: 6423 1096
WWF-Singapore
Leanora Gaffar, Asst. Comms. Manager
E: lgaffar@wwf.sg
M: 9844 6486
T: 6730 8112
MSC
Kelvin Ng, Regional Director, AP
E: kelvin.ng@msc.org
M:9664 3655 T: 6472 3280 | 6472 3780
About World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore
WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature is the world‟s largest and most respected independent conservation organisations, 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.
In 2010, WWF-Singapore started the Sustainable Seafood Programme with the release of a pocket-size WWF‟s Singapore Seafood Guide to help consumers and businesses choose seafood from sustainable sources that are fished and farmed responsibly. The guide uses a simple traffic light system: GREEN – recommended eating choice; YELLOW – only eat occasionally; and RED – avoid eating. Over 250,000 copies of the guide have been distributed across Singapore and it is available as a free download on wwf.sg.
About Marine Stewardship Council
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organisation set up to help transform the seafood market to a sustainable basis. The MSC runs the only certification and eco-labeling 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-labeling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries.
In total, over 300 fisheries are engaged in the MSC programme with 207 certified and over 100 under full assessment. Another 40 to 50 fisheries are in confidential pre-assessment. Together, fisheries already certified or in full assessment record annual catches of close to ten million metric tonnes of seafood. This represents over eleven per cent of the annual global harvest of wild 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 21,000 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel. www.msc.org
Mr Kelvin Ng, Asia Pacific Regional Director of MSC, “The MSC certification is one of the most credible indication of sustainability and has become a trust mark for seafood buyers and consumers alike. The certification process from fisheries to the supply chain is based on science and independent third-party verification. The MSC ecolabel is a simplified message for consumers to know that the seafood they have chosen come from a sustainable fishery, and from boat to plate, every step is traceable. Every purchase helps to conserve a sea life rich in biodiversity for future generations. This gives consumers the assurance that they are making informed and responsible choices.”
About Aquaculture Stewardship Council
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation co- funded by WWF and The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) in 2010 to manage the certification of responsible fish farming across the globe. The ASC standards require farm performance to be measured against both environmental and social requirements. Certification is through an independent third party process and (draft) reports are uploaded to the public ASC website. The on-pack ASC logo guarantees to consumers that the fish they purchase has been farmed with minimal impacts on the environment and society. www.asc-aqua.org