Sustainable, traceable and transparent procurement

Sustainable procurement does not mean simply ticking the bare minimum of boxes. What it does mean, is decades of continuing hard work with our global suppliers, with fisheries, with organisations that make and enforce policy and with our clients, in order to be a part of the solution to preserve the precious resources of our oceans.

In practice, this means that all our products are fully traceable down to the smallest of details and we believe wholeheartedly in complete transparency in every part of our supply chain.

Unfortunately, there are also human rights issues that need to be considered in the procurement process. As a result, we take a human rights due diligence approach to protecting workers within our supply chain from exploitative practices.

Our endeavors in sustainable procurement are intended to help preserve the precious resources of our oceans and to benefit the wider industry and not just our own business.

In addition to being long term certified and monitored by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), we also work closely with the MSC to help raise awareness and improve demand for sustainable fish throughout the chain of custody - fishing, transporting, trading, processing, packaging and selling across the food service and retail sectors.

As a socially responsible business, Sedex membership helps us to monitor all aspects of our global supply chain in order to protect the workers within it from exploitation. Allowing us to identify areas of risk and pro-actively manage and mitigate any risks to ensure we are aligned with UN guidance on international labour practices.

Fish friendly

Perhaps an odd statement given that fish is the main ingredient in all of our products but here's the thing, we have long since recognised the need to preserve and to improve fish populations by helping to maintain healthy levels of the fish that we procure.

So we make it our business to understand each species intimately, so that we know how healthy the populations are, what their breeding and migration patterns are and we know when and where is the best time to harvest them. Choosing the fishing area and time of year that offers the least detriment to population growth.

A vital aspect of this knowledge base is our international alliance; with fisheries, trawling fleets, and individual boat skippers and with our primary process supply partners around the world. This alliance has taken decades to establish and is a vital aspect of our business.

Our products are only as good as the fish we procure and that's why we place so much emphasis on understanding and protecting every aspect of this precious resource, that our business and our industry rely so heavily upon.

Waste not want not

As a responsible food manufacturer, we regard food waste of any kind as a sin. And especially so if that waste is from a high value protein resource like wild caught fish. A resource that we work so hard to procure sustainably and are actively involved in protecting through our support of sustainable and ethical fishing practices.

In the first instance we try very hard to ensure that we use as much of our raw material as we can, but some waste is inevitable no matter how diligent we are. So in order to mitigate this 'sinful waste' we have established a process, working with specialist waste recycling company Biotech4, that ensures our food waste is used for good and in a truly sustainable way.

None of our food waste, not even a single fish scale goes to landfill. Instead, every bit is carefully collected and transformed into renewable energy through a process called Anaerobic Digestion.

The process starts by mixing together food waste and liquids which are initially broken down through hydrolysis, next any pathogens are removed through pasteurisation, and lastly they are broken down still further through the digestion process.

The end result of this Anaerobic Digestion cycle transforms our food waste into Biofertiliser and Biogas.

Biofertiliser is rich in nutrients and contains no harmful chemicals making it ideal for sustainable crop farming, and Biogas is converted into renewable gas, electricity or heat.

Some of this renewable energy is used to power the Anaerobic Digestion process, and the rest is used to heat local homes and power local businesses.

This way we can ensure that 100% of every fish we procure is used for good and none of it is wasted.

Corporate, social and environmental responsibility

Our business and the livelihoods of the people who work at Three Oceans (and indeed the whole industry we are a part of) depends entirely on a precious natural resource that must be carefully managed to ensure its supply is sustainable. We may only be a small part of the overall picture but we take a great deal of care and place a lot of emphasis on our procurement procedures and the impact they have. We will only take species that are sustainable from approved fisheries that we know and trust and who are compliant with the global regulations of our industry.

Likewise we are committed to complying with (and often exceeding) all the mandatory requirements that apply to our operations here in the UK as well as around the world. It almost goes without saying that as a responsible Company we actively support and encourage the aims of the Marine Stewardship Council to support sustainable and well-managed fisheries.

We take an ethical and responsible approach to conducting our business and in this regard our client partners can rest assured that our CSER policies and ethical values are mutually beneficial, whether that be through international procurement of raw product or at our production facilities in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. As a supplier of the highest quality frozen fish products to the food service industry, we encourage our clients to expect the highest standards of ethical and responsible practices from us and we are proud of the standards we have achieved.

Of course our responsibility does not end at the point of raw product procurement and we apply the same ethics and principles to our manufacturing, packaging, transportation, energy and human resources. For example...

We ensure that virtually 100% of our raw product is used and that waste output is kept to an absolute minimum.
We actively support global and UK initiatives to remove plastic pollution from our oceans.
By using deep freeze and moisture resistant board, our packaging is 100% plastic free.
Fish waste from our processing operations is cleverly recycled to make packing cartons.
We are on target to reach zero to landfill by 2025.

In practice this means that at our facilities in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, we constantly strive to minimise any disturbance of our local environment by using products, processes, and equipment that are energy efficient and not wasteful of resources. All our waste, including packaging, food waste and liquids, is carefully disposed of only using approved methods and we comply with the 1997 Packaging Waste regulations for recycling and recovery of packaging. Natural resources such as water and energy are closely monitored and wherever possible improvements in efficiencies are implemented. We encourage our employees to share and participate in our environmental targets and reward the origination of ideas that help us improve our corporate and social responsibility.

There is always room for improvement and we will continue to reduce our environmental footprint and we actively seek to do this in all our activities. Our reliance on a fragile natural resource helps us to keep our responsibility at the front of our minds and it is never taken for granted.