Pushed by so called champagne environmentalists out of the UK back in the 1970’s.

Championed by forward thinking retailers such as UK M & S and supported by Unilever’s involvement in the fishmeal raw material and protein conversion production industry. Not really standards back then but definitely standard operating procedures and responsibilities in an array of areas such as the environment and child labor.

In the early 1980’s, media news stories start taking on importance. If bad practices got out to the market then share prices could be affected. The UK stock market was very sensitive.

So a requirement was to be ahead of the game always.

This thinking was crucial and is still just as important 35 years ago as it is today. To be retroactive and curative is not such a good trait. It is inefficient and expensive for business. What is needed is to be proactive and preventative. This also requires a larger world view…..and aspirational targets.

As a nascent industry this thinking was taken on board early on by shrimp farmers and this was later developed and applied in shrimp processing, markets downstream and horizontally in the industry. In fact these standards processes have now been translated to other species globally.

Global food standards nowadays cover a wide range of offerings. There are a plethora of standards available, covering everything from environmental issues, social aspects,  technical and operational, food safety, animal welfare, trade….you name it there is a standard to cover.

For larger organisations internally promoted food standards were an important part of brand protection for decades but the reach, depth and extent were not there. The wider food industry was still finding its way with technology and media starting to play its part and the importance of market feedback becoming more obvious.

Standards that are certified and independent have arisen only in the past 25 years, together with a massive ancillary service industry, and from being effectively non existent three decades ago.

Global Food Standards development was driven and pioneered by the growth of the fastest protein food production industry on the planet, namely shrimp aquaculture.

So in this series of few posts we will take a look how this came about….and what it means going forward…