A staggering 20 million tonnes of pet food is consumed each year by 750 million pets around the globe. Oceans are now under global threat, as issues such as an increased demand for seafood and unregulated fishing practices threaten to devastate already fragile fish stocks. Today’s announcement builds on the company’s work to protect vulnerable fish stocks and promote sustainable fishing solutions.

An important milestone in this sustainability journey will be the introduction of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified petfood in Europe. This year, Mars Petcare Europe will begin rolling out MSC certification across a selection of fish varieties in the SHEBA® and WHISKAS® brands, offering consumers a choice of more sustainable pet food products for the first time.

“We are leading the way with this commitment to use only sustainably sourced fish and as the world’s largest petcare business we’re in a position to affect real change.” said Pierre Laubies, Global President of Mars Petcare. “We are confident we can be a catalyst for change and by working with sustainability organizations such as the WWF we hope to encourage the rest of the industry to follow.”

The announcement today is part of Mars commitment to sustainably source its raw materials across its business and is the latest in a series of sustainability commitments made by the company.

In 2009, Mars became the first global chocolate company to commit to changing the way and the pace with which sustainable cocoa farming practices are being advanced by aiming to certify its entire cocoa supply as being produced in a sustainable manner by 2020.

Already, Mars Petcare has various initiatives underway across several local markets to help the company meet its 2020 commitment.