BERGEN, Norway -- The lack of knowledge of what was going on in the scandal-hit Thai fishmeal sector was one driver for now Cargill-owned EWOS Group to get involved with the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), a cooperation between 10 of the largest players in aquaculture, fishing and seafood, said Einar Wathne, CEO of the aqua feed division of the US agribusiness giant.
In 2014, the Guardian revealed slave labor was being used on vessels feeding into the Thai fishmeal industry, ultimately used to feed into the farmed shrimp sector. Wathne’s business, then EWOS Group, before the Cargill deal in 2015, did not know enough, he said, speaking at the 2018 North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) in Bergen, Norway.
“Asia was a big grey zone and we felt we had very little influence,” he said. “For fishmeal from Thailand, where there were working conditions no one could accept, we were not structured at all to handle it [the scandal].”
In 2016, Wathne was one of eight top sector CEOs who met in the Maldives in the first SeaBOS meeting [...]
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