TORONTO – Award-winning Montreal restaurant Brit & Chips has become the first independently owned restaurant in Canada to achieve Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. This means the restaurant can now serve sustainable wild-caught seafood that is clearly marked with the globally recognized blue MSC ecolabel. MSC certification also means that the seafood served at both locations can be traced back to well-managed, environmentally sustainable fisheries that are helping to safeguard oceans for the future.
The restaurant will celebrate the MSC certification along with its fifth anniversary on Wednesday, October 14 in Montreal.
“Achieving MSC certification is our way of giving back to our community and industry, two things that are strongly anchored in our ethos,” says Paul Desbaillets, co-owner of Brit & Chips. “As a fish & chip shop, it’s important that we play our part in sourcing our fish responsibly and making sure that we do what we can to protect the oceans that provide this resource. The MSC allows us to communicate our commitment to sustainability to our customers and give them clear choices they can feel good about.”
The two Brit & Chips restaurants now serve MSC certified cod, haddock, salmon and sole that customers can identify on menu by looking for the blue MSC ecolabel.
Brit & Chips joins 3,050 other MSC certified seafood supply chain organizations, including 50 fish ‘n’ chip shops in the U.K.. MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certification is awarded when a company in the supply chain demonstrates its ability to clearly separate and label MSC certified products from non-MSC certified products. It assures consumers that fish labelled with the MSC ecolabel can be traced from ocean to fork. It also ensures that the seafood came from a fishery certified to the MSC standard for sustainable fishing which is widely recognized as the world’s most credible standard for wild-caught sustainable seafood.
On the significance of this announcement, Jay Lugar, MSC Program Director for Canada says: “The Brit & Chips certification is proof that all companies, big and small, can become part of the sustainable fishing movement, safeguarding seafood supplies for this and future generations. We hope this news will pave the way for more Canadian restaurants to join our program as we welcome all new partners with open arms.”
The MSC Fisheries Standard is the most rigorous and widely recognized standard for sustainable wild-caught seafood in the world. As a consumer, you can play your part and become an #OceanHero by asking for MSC certified products in restaurants and by looking for the MSC blue ecolabel on fresh, frozen and canned seafood products at grocery stores and other retailers across Canada.
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About Brit & Chips
Since 2010 Brit & Chips has been offering Montrealers chippies spiked with a local flavour and style that have earned the restaurant top spots on numerous “Best Of” lists and a Zagat rating. Months of research and tireless scouring through England for recipe ideas spawned carefully crafted batters, each featuring a twist that pairs perfectly with the fish it accompanies. Flavours like Guinness, maple syrup, sour cream and onion and Burgundy Lion blonde (the namesake brew at their sister restaurant, Pub Burgundy Lion) are among the offerings.
About the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organization. Our vision is for the world’s oceans to be teeming with life, and seafood supplies safeguarded for this and future generations. Our ecolabel and certification program recognizes and rewards sustainable fishing practices and is helping create a more sustainable seafood market.
The MSC ecolabel on a seafood product means that:
- It comes from a wild-catch fishery which has been independently certified to the MSC’s science-based standard for environmentally sustainable fishing.
- It’s fully traceable to a sustainable source.
More than 250 fisheries in over 30 countries are certified to the MSC Standard. These fisheries have a combined annual seafood production of almost nine million metric tonnes, representing close to 10 per cent of annual global yields. More than 17,000 seafood products worldwide carry the MSC ecolabel. For more information visit www.msc.org
Source: Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)