Healthy Oceans, Healthy Living
King Oscar & Seachange® 2030
True to our Norwegian heritage, King Oscar has long been committed to protecting and enhancing our oceans. Our respect for the sea has been a way of life for generations. In fact, Norway is considered a global leader in sustainability and green economy development – and sets the standard for responsible fishery management.
As part of Thai Union, King Oscar shares the vision of being the world’s most trusted seafood leader, responsibly providing the best quality, best tasting, cleanest seafood choices possible. With our sister companies and our business partners, we are committed to far-reaching goals and integrated strategies designed to reshape our industry, benefitting both people and planet.
Together, we strive to create a better and more sustainable future for all – a future where healthy oceans and healthy living go hand in hand. This is what SeaChange 2030 is all about.
King Oscar’s heritage is both royal and green. In fact, Norway ranks among the Top 10 Greenest Countries of the World.1 Doing the right thing is in our DNA and is a core value.
Responsibly Sourced Seafood
The oceans are our planet’s largest ecosystem. According to the UN, around 600 million people globally are dependent on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods.2 When oceans and other waters are polluted or overfished, we endanger life and world food security.
With initiatives well underway, King Oscar aims to source all our fish only from sustainably managed stocks recognized by leading, science-based authorities or stocks that are part of accredited fishery improvement programs – all by 2030. This pledge applies to everything we produce.
As always, we remain committed to eco-friendly catch methods and to preventing illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing, wasteful discards, and irresponsible by-catches.
Path To Net Zero Emissions
In a process of continual improvement, King Oscar is optimizing efficient and clean production methods, working on improved packaging designs, and taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint throughout our entire chain. All in, we are committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 42% by 20303 and to reach net zero by 2050.
Additionally, research suggests that small pelagic fish such as sardines, Atlantic mackerel, herring, and anchovies have a smaller carbon footprint than perhaps all other animal protein sources.4 We are working to quantify these benefits.
Proudly, our production facilities have received IFS and ISO certification for food quality and safety management. These important standards help ensure safer foods for everyone, a better working environment for our team, and smarter resource utilization for our planet.
Committed To People Everywhere
King Oscar prioritizes people by standing for workplace health and safety measures, fair and equitable wages, non-discrimination policies, workers’ rights, and giving back to the communities in which we operate – empowering individuals and elevating corporate citizenship.
We adhere to the Norwegian Transparency Act, as well as to our own Vessel Code of Conduct and Business Ethics and Labor Code of Conduct. King Oscar is committed to the highest levels of integrity, dignity, and equality.
At King Oscar, people are at the heart of everything we do – from our employees who give their best to create the world’s finest seafood products, to the people who distribute our products around the world, to you, the people who enjoy the goodness in every can.
Best-In-Class Manufacturing
Focused on best-in-class manufacturing practices, we are investing in technologies that benefit the planet. Namely, we are taking action to save energy, reduce water use, and cut food waste.
In 2023, we installed solar panels at our primary facility in Gniewino, Poland, delivering about 10% of the site’s electricity requirements and have since installed LED lighting, optimized air compressor settings, and reduced the number of pumps in our drying system. Most significantly, the installation of a new boiler reduced gas consumption by nearly 20% and the use of chemicals to pre-treat the water by 50%. We have also installed an upgraded wastewater treatment system that significantly lowers chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels. And the sediment that remains after wastewater treatment is used for energy production by a local gas company.
As of 2022, our Gniewino plant has acquired 40% of its electricity from renewable sources, and we aim to increase this volume over time. Our plant in Svolvær, Norway, pulls 100% of its electricity from the local power grid, which is dominated by hydropower and wind power.
Smarter, Recyclable Packaging
For our packaging in the USA, King Oscar predominantly uses aluminum cans made from about 40% recycled content5 – and which are infinitely recyclable. Recyclable metal cans are environmentally smart in that they are light in weight (reduces shipping impacts), offer a long shelf life (helps to minimize food waste), and generally do not require refrigeration during transport or storage (helps to reduce associated energy consumption).
As part of our SeaChange® 2030 commitment to smarter packaging, we are exploring ways to reduce packaging weight and materials, remove unnecessary plastics, and increase recycled content. We are also continually looking at the industry horizon for new packaging options.
- GreenMatch independent ranking 2024, https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/greenest-countries.
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
- Compared with 2021 baseline.
- Nutrients and CO2 emissions, Koehn et al: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3954/meta.
- Trivium Packaging, statement on the recyclability, recycling, and recycled content of metals (Aug 2022).
