As the MSC indicates, brands and retailers exert increasing demand on the fish stock both as a food source and for feed meal markets, thus, they are in primary position to take action towards the conservation of small pelagic fish stocks.
Herring, blue whiting, and mackerel in the North-East Atlantic have had their MSC certifications revoked or suspended due to lack of consensus on quotas among fishing nations. These principal stocks have only had international agreements for 4 out of the last 25 years, until 2024. Canada and the USA have been in disagreement for 7 years, increasing the species’ catch over the recommended level by 31%.
Some of MSC’s commercial partners have already sourced herring from other more available pelagic fisheries, such as North Sea herring, summer spawning Icelandic herring, Southern Gulf of California thread herring, and Chilean jack mackerel which are supply to important markets.
According to MSC’s Small Pelagic Yearbook 2025, the small pelagic species group is the second most highly engaged in the MSC program with over 3 million metric tons certified worldwide in 2024, which constitutes 12 percent of the total small pelagic fish catch.
Small pelagic fish are important in their respective oceans as they act as paramount feeders for other marine animals. In addition, they are important for human nutrition making these fish important in the aquafeed industry. This is due to the fact that they are made of protein and contains Omega–3 fatty acids.
Small pelagic fish are already being overfished. This is mainly due to the growing demand which is caused due to a number of reasons. First of all, there is an increasing market for fish oil supplements. In 2008, the number of oil supplements was four, which were available that contained the MSC ecolabel. This increased to 475 supplements by the 2023/24 financial year. Second of all, aquaculture is predicted to grow, and so will the demand for small pelagic fish as they are the most available source of fish meal and oil used in animal feed.
“This newly published yearbook demonstrates the role of certification in driving sustainable outcomes for this species group, while holistically underscoring the risks posed to these highly dynamic fisheries in the absence of international agreements protecting them from overfishing and mismanagement,” claimed Nicolas Guichoux, the Chief Program Officer for MSC.
“Brands and retailers have a significant part to contribute in shifting the balance towards greater availability of certified small pelagic fish in the industry supply chain. Certified still has a lot of work to do in the dealing of atlantic mackerel, blue whiting, and herring. The MSC program needs to be relaxed in the quotas set for them so that they can be brought back under its MSC.”
“It is important for these species to serve multiple global markets, and it is equally important that they still act as fundamental sources of protein. In the latter case, certified availability has to be ensured for both the industry and consumers. This might impact market prices and volumes of products.”
The impacts of climate change on stock shift distributions are some of the challenges set out in the small pelagic yearbook 2025, together with an analysis of the market on this species. The yearbook also features case studies of certified small pelagic fisheries and details the impact that certification has on social and environmental sustainability.”
