Ministry prepares a new quality label for tuna

To position tuna even more at an international level _ with a “sector brand” is the proposal that was announced yesterday by Juan Carlos Cassinelli, Minister of Foreign Trade, at the start of a consultancy to promote “Atun del Ecuador.”

The Secretary of State indicated that this brand would be the hallmark that from next year will give the product a quality certification that would be added to other certifications of “high standards” it already has.

“Our product is widely consumed the US; this will allow us to keep that market and develop it. Today we are talking about a trade agreement with the European Union (EU), but we are also holding discussions with other countries in Europe that do not belong to the EU such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway, among others … countries like South Korea, Iran, and Turkey, which increasingly require an additional certificate,” he said.

Currently, Ecuador annually processes 450 thousand tons of tuna, which turns it, with 12% of global production, in the “third power,” Ricardo Herrera, president of the Ecuadorian Chamber of Industries and Tuna Processors of Ecuador (Ceipa), stated this.