Source: Interatun Press Release
Interatun, the Spanish organization, which groups tuna vessel owners and the tuna processing and marketing industry, is developing in 2010 a “promotional campaign for image enhancement and communication of the Spanish tuna industry.â€
The campaign will be financed by the Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs.
The specific objectives of the promotional campaign are to communicate and disseminate through the media the real image of the Spanish tuna industry, showing that the industry complies with all national and communitarian regulations and requirements on health and hygiene issues, labor, and respect for the management of tuna resources, environmental, maritime security and labor safety, etc.
The campaign strives at communicating the values and attributes of the Spanish tuna industry in terms of fleet and canning industry, to convey its true image, getting this across to the media, government, NGOs, environmentalists and consumers. Especially when competitors in the Spanish industry, located mostly in Southeast Asia do not respect these rules. Instead, their products are being consumed increasingly without impediment in markets of the European Union, which are traditionally sensitive to respecting environmental and labor aspects, thus generating unfair competition in the EU market.
The promotional campaign stands out, when comparing the Spanish tuna industry practices with the common practices of other countries’ tuna industry, in areas such as:
- Food safety.
- Environmental impact of operations.
- Job security.
- Working conditions
- The importance of sustainability of tuna resources
Interatun as a tuna interprofessional organization, promotes, protects and supports the sustainable management of tuna fisheries used for the Spanish tuna canning industry, in order to ensure the availability of raw materials for current and future demand for these products.
To do this, the Spanish tuna fleet and industry meets the technical measures of tuna fishing implemented by the RFOs in the three oceans in which it operates, in regards to minimum size, limitations of effort or catch and moratoriums fishing.
In this sense, the organizations that make Interatun clearly convey their willingness to jointly carry out the efforts to ensure the preservation of the tuna species for processing, with the ultimate aim of enhancing the sustainability of tuna resources, relying on their traceability, and ensuring compliance with all RFMO measures within RFMOs to ensure the most scrupulous respect for the resource.
Text from Interatun Press Release