Integrated ISO Systems in Seafood

Tuna Farmers at Port Lincoln have implemented OH&S and in fact due care for their workers was their main driver. Their systems are fully integrated and include AS/NZS 4801, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 plus most also have on vessel HACCP.  Most of the tuna farmers have implemented OH&S and in fact due care for their workers is their main driver. Their systems are fully integrated and include AS/NZS 4801, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 plus most also have on vessel HACCP.  Some have chosen to complete their systems and not proceed to external certification - this is their own choice.

Two of the larger companies have been accepted in WorkCover's Safety Achiever Bonus Scheme - their OH&S systems saving them substantial amounts of money.

This approach has been an excellent example of working with a significant exporting industry sector in Australia and of Jean's ability to ensure that each of the companies that it worked with were adequately trained and supported to implement their integrated management systems and successfully pass the final audits if desired.

It also demonstrated Jean's ability to work with industry at their workplace. In this example, all the tuna companies that Jean worked with are located in Port Lincoln, 700km from Adelaide. A well planned system of training, support and ongoing communication including regular site visits was undertaken smoothly and efficiently.

Glen and Tracy Hill are award winning fishers and fish processors in the Lakes and Corong.  The are close to completing ISO 14001 and are part of the world's first MSC multispecies fishery.  Glen won the "Leading Seafood Industry Producer" award. 

Glen has spent his adult life fishing the Lakes and Coorong Fishery.  He and his wife Tracy are both committee memebrs of the Southern Fishermen's Association. his is a commercial fishery that operates inside a National Park and includes a RAMSAR wetland of international importance.  It is also at the mouth of the beleagered River Murray and this fishery is the first multi speciaes fishery to be certified under the Marine Stewardship Certificicatiom.  PLUS Glen and Tracy are close to completing the ISO 14001 certification for their own business

In 2011 Glen wpn the Presigious "Leading Seafood Industry Producer Award' at the biennial Seafood Awards.

Seafood Industry Winners 2009   And pretty much the same in 2011
On May 8th 2009 the South Australian Seafood Industry held its biennial awards dinner.  What a night for some of my clients!  Of the 9 awards, three were won by my clients or former clients.  And I was a finalist in two awards - pipped at the post in one by a client!

The Spencer Gulf Kingfish farmers, together with the Seahorse Farm now at Port Adelaide, completed the work of implementing ISO 14001 as part of the National Aquaculture Project.  This was the only project that actually achieved the real outcome of a real EMS and had some group memebrs certied to ISO 14001.  This was achieved on budget and on time unlike the other 3 groups that were also funded.

Australian Prawn Farmers
Jean Cannon worked with the Australian Prawn Farmers Association to implement an eco-efficiency agreement, which involves annual benchmarking surveys on each farm, public environmental reporting, case studies and a group of five farms implementing a voluntary ISO 14001. The farms are using a group training approach with a series of three workshops held at the Gold Coast hinterland, Cardwell and Townsville and followed up by an on farm visit for each involved prior to external audit.

Eco-efficiency is about doing more with less. It is aimed at linking environmental and financial performance and involves using resources (such as energy, water, feed and other resources) more efficiently so that there is more production and less waste output.

The aim was to achieve improved environmental outcomes while lowering costs and increasing competitiveness. Eco-efficiency allows a business to demonstrate its care of the environment while also looking after its important business 'bottom line.'

Most farms already are doing a lot of this. It's called good management. Eco-efficiency is not prescriptive, not the same on every farm. The study documents what is being done and looks for more ways to be efficient and save both resources and money. It is about identifying the impacts prawn farming has on the environment and identifying a range of ways businesses can save money by also looking after the environment.

Matt West at Australian Prawn Farms Pty Ltd, based at Ilbilbie near Mackay in north Queensland was the first of the group to achieve ISO 14001 certiciation.

Dover Fisheries is an abalone cannery, processing, canning and exporting abalone from Australia and New Zealand. They had a well established quality and HACCP system that had been in place for several years and wanted to add ISO 14001 in a time and cost effective manner before their next audit. They wanted the new system to be fully integrated with their existing system and Jean's modular approach facilitated this.

They were given the training and templates for Module 1, which provides both an introduction to the development of an Environmental Management System (EMS) and a foundation for commencing the process of identifying, analysing and managing risks, the importance of identifying and complying with their legal obligations plus the contingency planning from Module 2 together with the additional environmental sections to integrate into their manual

Adam & Amos Abalone Foods have a clear but simple vision, to produce the best quality abalone food in the world. They are implementing a fully intgrated management system.  They have been operating since 1995, before commercial abalone farming became economically and technically viable in Australia. Adam & Amos committed themselves to this initially small but emerging and exciting industry. During this time, they have worked extensively with scientists and farmers in trying to solve the challenge of producing a high quality feed, but at a price that will fit with the economics of the abalone farm.

Humpty Doo Baramundi implemented ISO 14001 as part of a group of Barramundi farmers in northern Australia. The have added quality and safety working remotely. They have found the modular approach helpful with this.

Barramundi Farming in Australia takes place in widely different areas and there are very different methods used in the different locations. Barramundi are an estuarine species and can live in either fresh or salt water. In northern Australia the fish are farmed either in ponds using salt or brackish water or they are farmed in cage systems in the sea.

Humpty Doo Barramundi operates ponds using water pumped from the Adelaide River south of Darwin. They implemented ISO 14001 as part of a group of Barramundi farmers in northern Australia. The groups attended workshops based in either Cairns or Darwin and were subsidised by FarmBis which was very helpful as they all needed to travel large distances from mostly remote places across northern Australia. The Darwin based group was joined by the northern territory airports which made an interesting mix of experience in the group.

They approached Jean to add OH&S (AS/NZS 4801) and Quality (ISO 9001). They are doing this remotely with only one day's training to implement this system and mentoring by phone, fax and email. The tools, templates and training are simple enough to allow this.

Coorong Cockles processes and exports live and frozen cockles based at its facil;ity at Port Elliott, South Australia.  Jean Cannon assisted them to obtain their AQIS approved Export arrangement

Fish Protech implemented ISO 14001, occupational health and safety and HACCP.  They are now operating in Malaysia

Australian Bight Abalone  is a case where one of the most environmentally friendly aquaculture processes in the world is being threatened by a small group of protestors on supposedly environmental grounds. A large amount of misinformation has been provided to the press and to some politicians. The long established local community are very supportive of a sustainable new industry in their small town.

The abalone are farmed in the sea in very innovative floating cages that effectively act as a reef growing its own algae to feed the abalone so there are no additional inputs into the water. The company works closely with Parks and Wildlife personnel to ensure there are no adverse marine mammal interactions and have emergency training and procedures in place to manage this unlikely event.

During the early setup phase, a storm dislodged some rigid plastic abalone homes from partially constructed cages and these were inevitably washed up on beaches and reefs. Although they were recovered as rapidly as possible some people believed that these structures posed a threat to a nearby seal colony. This problem was quickly rectified and design modifications made to ensure this couldn’t happen again. The root cause was identified and corrective action promptly taken.

Australian Bight Abalone has demonstrated its environment credentials by implementing ISO 14001 as part of a fully integrated management system also including OH&S, Quality and HACCP. Implementing a fully integrated management system at an early stage of the company development will allow the company growth to be managed and remain environmentally friendly.