Zur Bedeutung des Marine Stewardship Council-Siegels für den Fischgroß- und Einzelhandel

With the beginning of industrial fishing fish has become a commodity. Pressing
problems such as by-catch, illegal fishing as well as the increasing demand for fish in
developing countries contribute to the fact that the world's oceans are increasingly
overfished. Therefore, it was initially necessary to develop a globally accepted
medium for the regulation of global fish stocks.
In the past decade the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label for capture fisheries
has assured its position as a dominating label for sustainable fish. Especially in
Germany the label has strengthened its position in the food retailing sector.
Numerous articles have already focused on the assessment of the environmental and
social benefits of the label as well as on the certification scheme. In contrast, this
paper analyzes the importance of the Marine Stewardship Council label for the fish
wholesale and retail in Germany. In order to evaluate the importance of the label in
the fish wholesale and retail twelve interviews were conducted in the fishery sector as
well as one interview with the Marine Stewardship Council.
The outcome of the study indicates that the MSC label is to a large extent seen as a
marketing instrument for the wholesale and food retailing. The use of the label is
described as heavily involuntary in cause of pressures in the value chain.
Furthermore, especially smaller and specialized fish shops have only little, or no
benefits at all, after a MSC certification. Therefore, the MSC has so far not been able
to convince the retail sector of its labels benefits. In fact it has failed to outline that its
certification system can be implemented as well in the retail as in the wholesale
sector. Thus, the reputation of the MSC label in the retail sector is very low. The MSC
has so far done little to simplify the certification for smaller and specialized fish
shops. One reason for this is the subordinate importance of these shops for the
overall significance of the MSC. The specialized shops only account for five percent
of the German fish sales.
Overall, the MSC label is seen as the correct approach to regulate the global fish
stocks and implement a sustainable development, which is however implemented
incorrectly. The MSC certification is considered as generally difficult to comprehend,
too expensive and above all too labor intensive. Besides, the overall authority to act
for a sustainable development is seen mainly in the fishery policy of the European
Union and not in the MSC organization.