Best Aquaculture Practices is the aquaculture certification programme of the Global Seafood Alliance (formerly GAA). Unlike single-farm schemes, BAP certifies each link in the production chain — hatchery, feed mill, farm and processing plant — and its star system (one to four stars on-pack) signals how many of those links are certified. Standards are issue-based and revised on a cycle: the suite includes the Salmon Farm Standard (Issue 3.0), the Feed Mill Standard and a general Farm Standard covering finfish, crustaceans and molluscs. Requirements address food safety, environmental management, social accountability, animal health and traceability, with antibiotic and effluent limits among its measurable criteria. Audits are performed by third-party certification bodies. Because the stars encode chain coverage, the label's meaning varies: four-star product is certified end-to-end, while one-star certifies only the processing plant. Certification supports a claim only within the certified links and scope; it does not by itself prove outcomes or validate wording beyond that scope.
Conditional relationships
Claims it may support
A relationship does not mean that the standard proves or validates every use of a claim.