6 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2026 Imagine you work at a major supermarket supply chain, and your directors have just been notified of critical Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risks outlined in the latest compliance report. The message is unequivocal: unless the company restructures its supply chain to align with stronger animal welfare standards, its credibility and market access are at serious risk. Now, you have a challenge at hand: you must rethink how the company selects its suppliers. Certification labels, once considered sufficient, are no longer enough. The new directive is clear: all seafood products must not only be certified but certified in a way that meaningfully reflects the company’s values and the growing expectations of both consumers and regulators. This is where benchmarking enters the scene, not as a corporate buzzword, but as a tool for making sense of a complex landscape. REVEALING THE HIDDEN LEVERS BEHIND SOURCING DECISIONS In the expanding world of aquaculture, certification labels have become the lingua franca of sustainability. For buyers, they offer reassurance; for producers, a pathway to market. Yet the apparent uniformity of certification often masks wide variation in what those standards actually require, and deliver. Enter benchmarking. Not as a judgment or a leaderboard, but as a form of translation. Aquatic Life Institute’s (ALI) Aquaculture Certification Schemes Benchmark decodes the dense architecture of global certification schemes, revealing how each addresses animal welfare, not just in isolated touchpoints, but across the system. While a certifier logo may suggest parity, the analysis by the ALI Benchmark reveals divergence. Two certifiers may claim to uphold welfare, yet one might enforce precise limits on stocking density and water quality, while another leans on flexible, principle-based guidelines. The outcome? Drastically different conditions for the same species in different farms. Welfare, as the Benchmark underscores, is not defined by a single moment. It extends far beyond the stunning method or handling at slaughter. It’s the lived experience of aquatic animals, shaped daily by water quality, feed formulation, stocking density, and behavioral stressors. These are the "hidden levers", policy decisions disguised as technicalities, often omitted or vaguely treated in many standards. And while the ethical imperative to improve animal welfare is compelling in itself, its impact reaches further. Strong welfare practices are increasingly linked to sustainability outcomes, public health, and biosecurity. Poor welfare conditions can increase disease risk, raise reliance on antibiotics, and destabilize ecosystems—issues that ripple across global supply chains. In this light, investing FROM LABELS TO LEVERS: How Benchmarking Is Reshaping Aquaculture Sourcing Decisions Steffan Edward Seafood Certification Specialist Aquatic Life Institute (ALI) LEAD ARTICLE
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