Our History
We are a not-for-profit and charitable company by limited guarantee that was established in April 2025.
Although our company is new, we have been assessing seafood for nearly 20 years.
Our first assessments were under the Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Program.
That program had its beginnings in 2006 when Chris Smyth was working at the Australian Conservation Foundation as its Healthy Oceans Campaigner. In 2007 Chris teamed up with eminent marine scientist, Trevor Ward, and together they co-founded the program.
By the end of 2007 Trevor and Chris had gathered leading marine scientists from across Australia to form the Science Reference Panel (now our Science Reference Committee). The scientists were Professors Michael Keough and David Booth, Dr Jeremy Prince, Greg Jenkins and the late Professor Peter Fairweather.
During 2008 and 2009 the panel, with philanthropic support, met and developed the Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Criteria in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney. They also met with fishers in South Australia and Western Australia to gain their feedback on the criteria and assessment process. By the end of 2009, and after ‘road testing’, the criteria were ready for the full assessment of Australian seafood products.
From 2009 to 2011 the panel, supported by research assistants, completed full assessments for various Australian wild-catch and farmed seafood products in places such as Corner Inlet and Port Phillip Bay. For the assessments in Port Phillip Bay, we formed an advisory committee that included local scientists and commercial fishers. At the 2011 Victorian Seafood Industry Awards our Port Phillip Bay assessment process won the Seafood Industry Promotion Award.
From the beginning of the program, philanthropic support was critical to its progress. So too was the program’s engagement with restaurateurs and chefs, and the efforts of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s fundraising and communications staff who organised various events and media to promote sustainable seafood choices and source funding. However, the Foundation discontinued their program at the end of 2013.
Nevertheless, our panel of scientists maintained their interest in sustainable seafood assessments. In 2017 they published the scientific paper ‘Australia’s coastal fisheries and farmed seafood: an ecological basis for determining sustainability’ in the journal, Australian Zoologist. The paper describes the criteria and process that can be used to determine whether locally farmed and wild-caught Australian seafood products meet the standards of ecological sustainability.
Two years later the Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Program was reactivated by the scientists to work closely with the Bondi-based Happy Fish Project to assess seafood products.
The Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Program has now become Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Limited (SASAL).
We have created the company to provide a strong commitment to being a credible not-for-profit charity that operates transparently and accountably, builds trust with the community and industry, and provides legal protection for our directors and members.
ACF works with restaurateurs and chefs to hold sustainable seafood luncheons and dinners to promote its work.
The Science Reference Panel develops the Sustainable Australian Seafood Assessment Criteria and assessment process.
Panel assesses the sustainability of Australian wild-catch and farmed seafood products. Photo: imogenisunderwater
ACF’s sustainable seafood program wins industry promotion award at the annual Seafood Industry Victoria awards.
ACF conducts research into how best to connect seafood consumers and seafood markets.
The Science Reference Panel has an article on the sustainable seafood criteria and assessment process published in Australian Zoologist.
The Panel works with the Happy Fish Project to assess the sustainability of Australian seafood products.
