Pacific bluefin tuna producer reports lower juvenile catch incidence, reduced mortality and emissions intensity, and continued investment in monitoring and traceability
-- Baja Aqua Farms' 2025 Sustainability Report offers a detailed look at how the Pacific bluefin tuna producer is approaching responsible aquaculture through a combination of fisheries management, environmental monitoring, animal welfare, technology and traceability.
Rather than focusing on a single sustainability metric, the report tracks performance across several operational areas, including the composition of fish entering the company's operations, mortality, energy and emissions intensity, food safety, workforce development and community engagement.
One of the most notable changes concerns the size of Pacific bluefin tuna captured for the company's operations.
In 2025, the incidence of juvenile catch fell below 5%, which Baja Aqua Farms reports as a reduction of more than 90% compared with 2024. The average harvested fish exceeded 70 kilograms.
That represents a substantial change from 2024, when 49% of captured fish were below 30 kilograms.
For Pacific bluefin tuna, fishery management and the size composition of catch are closely connected to questions of stock health, responsible sourcing and long-term resource management. Baja Aqua Farms said the change reflects improvements in the sizes of fish captured and stocked into its operations.
Building a formal pathway for fishery improvement
The company also took a significant step toward formalizing its fisheries-management work in 2025 by registering its Pacific Bluefin Tuna Fishery Improvement Project under the Marine Stewardship Council framework.
A Fishery Improvement Project provides a structured mechanism for identifying areas requiring improvement and tracking progress over time.
For Baja Aqua Farms, the initiative is intended to strengthen sustainability, transparency and traceability while creating a pathway toward independent assessment.
The company expects its first official FIP progress rating during the third quarter of 2026.
It also anticipates undergoing the Announcement Comment Draft Report process during 2026 as it evaluates pursuing MSC certification for the Mexican Pacific bluefin tuna fishery. Baja Aqua Farms has established an objective of achieving certification by the second quarter of 2028.
The certification objective remains a future target rather than a current certification claim. The distinction is important because the company's current report is documenting progress toward that objective.
Using technology to understand tuna biomass
Another emerging element of the company's approach is artificial intelligence.
Baja Aqua Farms has continued working with a Croatian technology company on an AI system designed to estimate tuna abundance and biomass in real time.
Following validation and refinement, the system achieved an estimated 2% error margin, according to the company.
The potential value of such a system extends beyond operational efficiency. More timely estimates of abundance and biomass can provide additional information for fisheries monitoring and decision making.
The technology is being developed alongside more traditional monitoring and traceability practices, creating a layered approach to understanding the fishery.
Responding to environmental conditions
Environmental monitoring is also incorporated into daily operations.
Baja Aqua Farms reported a 15.4% reduction in emissions intensity during 2025 compared with 2024, contributing to a cumulative reduction of 21.8%.
Energy intensity within the organization declined 24.5%, while total energy intensity within and outside the organization declined 32.5%.
The company also continued routine seabed inspections near the Coronado Islands and efforts to reduce feed loss.
These measures are particularly relevant in marine aquaculture, where environmental performance depends not only on energy and emissions but also on interactions between farm operations, feed, water quality and surrounding ecosystems.
The company's approach therefore combines resource-use metrics with direct environmental monitoring.
A 66% reduction in mortality
Animal health and welfare represented another area of significant reported improvement.
Mortality declined from 7.43% in 2024 to 2.53% in 2025, a reduction of 66%.
Baja Aqua Farms attributed the change largely to improvements in the size of captured fish entering the operation and lower mortality during harmful algal bloom events.
The latter is particularly significant because harmful algal blooms can create rapidly changing environmental conditions for marine animals.
The company's response includes daily mortality inspections, water-quality monitoring and monitoring for harmful algal blooms. In 2025, the farm team also relied on predictive indicators to respond earlier to potential bloom events.
The company conducts weekly net cleaning using remotely operated vehicles and support vessels.
At harvest, Baja Aqua Farms uses the Japanese Ikejime method. The company states that its process does not rely on asphyxiation, CO2 stunning or ice chilling.
The focus on mortality and harvest methodology illustrates an increasingly important aspect of responsible seafood production: environmental performance and animal welfare are interconnected operational issues rather than separate categories.
Traceability begins with the supply chain
Food safety and traceability are also central to Baja Aqua Farms' vertically integrated model.
Baja Marine Foods, a Baja Aqua Farms company, is authorized by Mexico's COFEPRIS to export to the European Union and other Codex markets and is subject to annual audits.
The processing facility has maintained BAP Seafood Processing Standard certification since 2023.
In 2025, the company reported eliminating critical nonconformities and reducing major and minor nonconformities by 33.3%.
Baja Aqua Farms also maintains Kosher and Halal certifications, as well as Friend of the Sea and Dolphin Safe certifications for its tuna fisheries.
For seafood buyers and downstream customers, these systems provide multiple points of verification around processing, food safety and sourcing.
Measuring the human side of aquaculture
The report extends beyond environmental indicators to include the communities and workforce connected to Baja Aqua Farms' operations.
The company employed 371 people during 2025, with 32% of employees hired from local communities in Baja California.
Workforce continuity is another notable measure. Baja Aqua Farms reported that 90% of employees returning during fishing season have worked with the company within the previous 10 years.
The company also maintains three higher-education collaboration agreements in Ensenada supporting internships and professional residencies.
Such programs provide practical experience for local students while creating a potential talent pipeline for an industry that requires expertise spanning marine biology, fisheries management, engineering, food safety and operations.
Baja Aqua Farms CEO Manuel Vázquez described the company's approach as one based on continuous improvement.
"Sustainability is not a destination. It is the way we choose to operate every day," Vázquez said.
That philosophy is reflected in the structure of the company's 2025 report, which was prepared with reference to the GRI Standards 2021 and aligned with the GRI 13 Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing Sectors Standard.
The report does not present responsible aquaculture as a single initiative. Instead, it documents a series of operational indicators: juvenile catch incidence, fish size, mortality, emissions intensity, energy intensity, environmental monitoring, food-safety performance, traceability, workforce participation and community engagement.
The next stage will bring additional scrutiny to those measurements.
Baja Aqua Farms expects its first FIP progress rating in 2026 and plans to continue through the MSC assessment process as it evaluates certification for the Mexican Pacific bluefin tuna fishery.
The company's stated objective is to achieve MSC certification by the second quarter of 2028.
Until then, the 2025 report provides a baseline for measuring whether the improvements reported this year can be sustained and expanded.
That emphasis on measurement may ultimately be as important as any individual initiative. In a seafood sector increasingly focused on responsible sourcing, traceability and evidence-based environmental performance, progress is increasingly defined not simply by what companies commit to do, but by what they can document over time.
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