Four Stars for Open Blue Cobia
Congratulations to Open Blue Sea Farm Panama S.A., the world’s first company capable of offering four-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) cobia. The company became eligible to offer four-star BAP cobia upon confirmation that it purchases feed from two BAP-certified feed mills, Biomar Aquacorporation Products S.A. in Costa Rica and Vitapro S.A. in Peru.
The announcement comes less than seven months after Open Blue announced that its processing plant, farm and hatchery had attained BAP certification. The company is the first cobia producer to apply for and earn BAP certification.
Four-star is the highest designation in the BAP program, signifying that a product originates from a BAP-certified processing plant, farm, hatchery and feed mill.
Open Blue raises cobia offshore in low-density, fully submerged pens located 8 miles off Panama in the Caribbean Sea. The open-water, high-current setting provides a natural growing environment for the fish, reducing the risk of disease and with minimal impact on the surrounding ecosystem. Cobia are native to the Caribbean.
Open Blue is a pioneer and world leader in raising fish in the open ocean. It is the single largest supplier of fresh cobia to the U.S. and Europe. Its operations represent the culmination of a decade of cutting-edge research on deep-ocean aquaculture, in collaboration with the world’s leading scientific laboratories and universities. The result is a revolution in the way fish are responsibly raised, from egg to plate.
BAP is the world’s most comprehensive third-party certification program, with standards encompassing environmental responsibility, social responsibility, food safety, animal health and welfare and traceability. Through the first three-quarters of 2017, the number of BAP-certified farms, processing plants, hatcheries and feed mills worldwide totaled 1,737.
About BAP
A division of the Global Aquaculture Alliance, Best Aquaculture Practices is an international certification program based on achievable, science-based and continuously improved performance standards for the entire aquaculture supply chain — farms, hatcheries, processing plants and feed mills — that assure healthful foods produced through environmentally and socially responsible means. BAP certification is based on independent audits that evaluate compliance with the BAP standards developed by the Global Aquaculture Alliance.
