SeaChoice

Category: Seafood

  • How much progress have we seen in seafood sustainability since last summer?

    How much progress have we seen in seafood sustainability since last summer?

    A year later, we see retailers have progressed in many ways, but important work remains to ensure retailers flex their purchasing power to contribute to healthier oceans.

    Seafood Progress – Canada’s online resource for tracking major food retailers’ sustainable seafood commitments – has just released an update that highlights what has changed in the past year. Seafood Progress assesses the seafood policy and procurement practices for Canada’s nine major food retailers against 21 key performance indicators derived from the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions’ Common Vision for Sustainable Seafood. Seafood consumers can use this tool to see what their retailer is doing to support sustainable seafood and whether it is contributing to change on the water. You can find a short video that walks you through Seafood Progress and how you can use it here.

    SeaChoice is pleased to report that the national averages for all Steps increased across the board. This is due to an increase in transparency on what retailers are doing on seafood sustainability and to progressive new initiatives. For example, this year two additional retailers (Sobeys and Safeway) cooperated with SeaChoice to share information about their policies and practices, leading to more complete and representative profiles. There is now only one major food retailer whose profile is based solely on publicly available information. Two other retailers, Walmart Canada and METRO, decided to start publishing information on where their seafood comes from and how it was produced (see Walmart Canada’s Ocean Disclosure Project profile and METRO’s Freshness You Can Trace initiative).

    Unfortunately, there are still important areas where progress has been limited. Practices regarding seafood labelling, for example, continue to be barely above the legal minimum requirement – despite one retailer (METRO) showing that other important information such as the species’ scientific name, geographic origin of harvest and harvest method, can be included on seafood packaging in both English and French. Step 6, which looks at what retailers are doing to support improvements of challenging seafood commodities, also continues to lag far behind the other areas – showing that there are lots of opportunities for retailers to increase their impact. It would be great to see all retailers take actions like Save-On-Foods, whose private label shrimp and prawns are entirely produced in ways that are ‘Recommended’ by Ocean Wise and from farms certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

    If you care about sustainable seafood, let your retailer know! Visit Seafood Progress to see how your favourite retailer has scored, then tell them what you like and what you want to see changed. Seafood Progress provides buttons that allow users to tweet a retailer easily. Alternatively, you can contact their customer service department or speak to a representative in store. For more information on the Year 2 results from Seafood Progress, see our short report.

    SeaChoice would like to acknowledge the retailer representatives who contributed their time and energy to work with us and share new information so their profiles are as complete and accurate as possible.

    This post was followed by a series of articles about the results from each step:

  • Made in Canada, eh?

    Made in Canada, eh?

    Have your say on proposed “Made in Canada” labelling guidelines.

    Do you care about the transparency of food labels and where your seafood comes from? Have your say on CFIA’s proposed changes to the “Made in Canada” and “Product of Canada” food labelling claims. The consultation is open until June 23rd.

    Made in Canada

    The CFIA is proposing to remove necessary information to the “Made in Canada” claim guidance. Many of you have concerns regarding the health and safety, environmental sustainability and social responsibility of the seafood products you purchase – and the origin of seafood is a contributing factor to these risks. The proposed changes reduce the transparency of seafood products and eliminate information you need to understand where your food comes from. This impedes your ability to make informed purchasing decisions.

    Right now, products “Made in Canada” have to state if any ingredients were imported. For example, the seafood brand High Liner Foods has the qualifying statement “made from domestic and imported ingredients” on their “Made in Canada” frozen fish products when their product was processed and packaged in Canada, but some or all of the fish was caught or farmed in another country. The CFIA proposal is to get rid of the qualifying statement, so that products can be labelled as “Made in Canada” with no comment as to whether the ingredients were imported.

    The CFIA proposal is to get rid of the qualifying statement, so that products can be labelled as “Made in Canada” with no comment as to whether the ingredients were imported.

    SeaChoice has let CFIA know we do not agree with their proposal. If you agree with our concerns, we encourage you to do the same. You can submit your concerns here. Below is some text we have prepared to support the rationale for your submission, which we invite you to use as is or edit as you see fit.

    Suggested content for rationale box:

    I do not support the proposed guidelines for “Made in Canada” claims. The proposal to remove the qualifying statement accompanying the “Made in Canada” claim creates the opportunity for a food label to be misrepresentative and misleading. As a seafood consumer, I look for information such as the origin of a product’s content to understand where my food comes from. I do this because the origin is a risk factor to the health and safety, environmental sustainability and social responsibility of the seafood product and/or because I want to support Canada’s seafood industry. The qualifying statement at least tells me if the ingredients are fished, harvested or grown in Canada or internationally. This basic information is crucial in the absence of more detailed seafood labelling, as is often the case under Canada’s current seafood labelling laws.

    Product of Canada

    We are also concerned with the proposed change to the “Product of” claim, and have let CFIA know we do not support it.

    Under the current definition of “Product of Canada,” all or virtually all major ingredients, processing, and labour used to make the food product are Canadian. “All or virtually all” has been interpreted to mean greater than 98% – but CFIA is proposing to reduce this threshold to 85%. Under the 85% guidelines, seafood caught in Canada and processed overseas would not meet the “Product of” threshold. Ironically, imported raw seafood that receives further processing in Canada could be a “Product of Canada” if most of the other ingredients, processing and labour were Canadian. We think this is opposite to what Canadians are looking for in their seafood labelling, for the reasons identified in our “Made in Canada” rationale above, and consider the proposed guidance to be misleading and not truthful. If you agree with our concerns, we encourage you to tell CFIA here.

  • Canadians continue to eat in the dark when it comes to retail seafood

    Canadians continue to eat in the dark when it comes to retail seafood

    The 2018 results are in: Almost 1 in 10 seafood products were mislabelled and only 1 in 5 were labelled according to best or near-best practices.

    Seafood sold in the Canadian marketplace is subject to inadequate labelling regulations that allow for misrepresentation or fraud to occur along the supply chain. Under current regulations, consumers are left not knowing what species they are eating, what country it came from, and whether their purchases contribute to environmental degradation, or human right abuses.

    Global best practice include six pieces of information on seafood labels:

    1. common name,
    2. species scientific name,
    3. geographic origin (the location of catch or of the aquaculture operation),
    4. country of last major transformation/processing,
    5. production method (whether farmed or wild), and
    6. gear type or farming method.

    Canada currently requires only 1) for domestic seafood, and 1) and 4) for imported seafood.

    In 2017 we partnered with LifeScanner to carry out a broad test of all kinds of seafood in many different retail stores – looking at both the accuracy and quality of Canada’s seafood labels. In 2018 we repeated the study, and worked with LifeScanner and 81 volunteer citizen scientists to assess the quality and accuracy of retailers’ seafood labelling, turning the data into an index from which we can track improvements. Based on our 2017 results, we focused this round of testing on major retailers and the most challenging products that are commonly available in the Canadian marketplace (i.e. cod, sole, snapper/rockfish, wild salmon and farmed shrimp). Volunteers sent the DNA samples and pictures of the seafoods’ labels in to LifeScanner.

    Our dedicated citizen scientists submitted 272 samples, which represented 123 unique products, from 85 individual stores belonging to Canada’s seven major retailers.

    Labelling accuracy

    Almost one in ten unique seafood products had samples that were determined to be mislabelled. This might not initially seem like a lot, but it adds up to a significant problem considering we focused on seafood sold in large volumes by Canada’s biggest retailers. Mislabelled products had a common name that did not match the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) Fish List guidelines for acceptable common or market name for that species.

    Seafood mislabelling can occur anywhere along the supply chain and it can be hard to determine at which point the mistake was made. The seafood mislabelling we identified can be divided into three main types: common name confusion, closely related species confusion, and clear species substitution.

    Common name confusion can occur where CFIA has different naming guidelines for different species within a species group. For example ten species of rockfish from Canada’s Pacific waters can be labelled under the common name ‘Pacific snapper’, but eighteen species of rockfish are not permitted to use this name.

    Closely related species confusion can arise when species are mislabelled even though they are not caught in the same fishery, or even the same ocean. For example, we found samples where Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) was labelled as Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus).

    The final type of mislabelling was species substitution, when one species is substituted for another in a way that is untruthful or misleading, even if it happened by accident. For example, “wild Pacific sole” that turned out to be Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua).

    We would like to reiterate that these instances of mislabelling might not be due to actions by the retailers themselves, but they are ultimately responsible for ensuring their products are properly labelled. This is why good seafood traceability systems are essential for correct naming. We have shared our results with each retailer so they can try to find out what went wrong.

    Labelling quality

    Similar to our 2017 results, our more focused 2018 sampling revealed that retailers are doing a relatively good job of telling Canadians whether their seafood is wild caught or farmed. However, only one quarter of the products had labels indicating where the product was fished or farmed, just over 1 in 10 products indicated a scientific name, and less than 1 in 10 specified a production method. Canadians continue to eat in the dark when it comes to our seafood.

    We are going to be working with retailers to improve the key information they include on seafood labels, and are continuing our work with the Canadian government to try to raise the bar on their requirements for seafood labelling. You can learn more about our efforts here.

    If you want to help, you can let your retailer know you want better seafood labelling by speaking to them in store or by tweeting them and using the tag #SeafoodProgress. You can also find suggested tweets for each retailer on their Seafood Progress profile and message them that way.

  • How to spot seafood you can feel good about

    How to spot seafood you can feel good about

    Seafood eco-labels can help you buy products that are environmentally sustainable and socially responsible.

    A few weeks ago, SeaChoice hosted representatives from Canada’s major retailers to an online webinar on the differences between seafood eco-labels. The aim was to alleviate any confusion caused by the ever-increasing array of seafood eco-labels in the market. Our webinar was directed at large-volume seafood buyers, but there are some key differences among types of eco-labels that smaller-volume buyers, like you and me, should be aware of too.

    There are three main categories of seafood eco-labels: eco-certifications, rankings and recommendations, and self-claims. This article will only discuss the environmental aspects of seafood eco-labels, but as my colleague highlighted in a recent article, an increasing number of organizations are developing methods to assess social responsibility and reflect it in eco-labels.

    Eco-certifications

    The primary distinguishing characteristic of eco-certifications, compared to other types of eco-labels, is that they assess fisheries or farms against a published standard or set of requirements, and assessments are carried out by independent, third-party companies hired by the fishery/farm. The assessments are peer-reviewed and also made available for stakeholder input. Some certification schemes, like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) also require every actor along the supply chain to be certified against their Chain of Custody Standard, which results in very high confidence that the product you buy in store is what you think it is.

    However, while robust eco-labels like MSC and ASC can help you spot environmentally sustainable products, certification is voluntary (and quite expensive, especially for small producers) and the majority of fisheries and farms don’t have these certifications, so they aren’t always easy to find in Canada.

    Fortunately, there are other eco-labels that can help you choose sustainably produced, but non-certified, products.

    Rankings and recommendations

    There have been many different ranking systems developed to suit markets around the world, but the most common in Canada are the Ocean Wise Seafood Program developed by the Vancouver Aquarium and Seafood Watch rankings developed by our southern neighbors at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

    Seafood ranking and recommendation programs work by scoring the sustainability of a fishery or farm. They usually rely on published methodologies to justify their judgments, and like eco-certifications, assessments are peer-reviewed and made available for stakeholder comments. Consumer-facing programs will make their recommendations freely available on their website, on mobile apps, or on paper handouts. You will need detailed information regarding the seafood in question in order to use these tools (more on this below). Some programs also allow their logo to be used on seafood products or on menus, such as the Ocean Wise Recommended logo.

    Fisheries or farms generally don’t get a say in whether they are ranked by these programs – decisions are typically driven by product importance to the market. This means a wider range of seafood is ranked, compared to eco-certified. This makes rankings useful when trying to figure out which kinds of seafood are particularly worrisome from an environmental point of view, for example products in Seafood Watch’s ‘Avoid’ category.

    In contrast to the eco-certifications programs outlined above, ranking and recommendation programs generally don’t include traceability requirements. This means retailers or restaurants need to have their own system in place to make sure the products they are buying are what they think they are.

    Another consideration with ranking programs is that due to Canada’s lax labelling laws, which only require seafood labels to include a common name (and for imported products, the country of last major processing), you may not have enough information to use the program. A seafood’s rank or rating depends on which species it is, how it was produced, and where it was produced. SeaChoice’s ongoing studies into seafood labels in Canada shows that products usually aren’t labelled with any of this information. We are actively working with the Canadian government to raise standards and with Canadian retailers to improve labelling voluntarily.

    Self-claims

    Finally, there’s one more type of eco-label you might see on your seafood – especially if you’re buying frozen or canned products – and that’s self-claims.

    Self-claims are either logos or slogans on seafood products that a company has developed on their own. Self-claims might refer to the company’s sourcing policy or set of sourcing standards, or they might refer to nothing at all. Some businesses’ provide details on their websites, but the details can be ambiguous. For example, one company’s eco-label is stated to represent a commitment to sourcing from “MSC-certified fisheries, fisheries under MSC pre-assessment or fisheries identified for Fishery Improvement Projects”. The last category could mean very little in terms of sustainability. Fisheries identified by who? Have they started on the project or are they just identified as needing to? What are the goals of the improvement project, and are they actually making progress? How much of this product is being sourced from each category?

    This lack of clarity, and the fact that most are neither independently verified nor traceable, means it can be hard to know how sustainable these products truly are.

    SeaChoice and eco-labels

    Recently, SeaChoice has been taking a close look at eco-certifications to see if the fisheries and farms they are certifying actually live up to their standards. This is because we believe in the potential they have to bring positive changes to practices on the water, particularly because of the joint market power of retailers and other industry actors who have committed to using them.

    Now that we have a good understanding of where these eco-labels are at, we are going to be turning our attention to the other types of eco-labels, especially self-claims. Stay tuned for the results of our first census of self-claims on seafood products sold in Canada’s major grocery stores.

    And next time you find yourself in the seafood aisle, take a look at the packaging. How many eco-labels can you see? Is it clear what they mean? If you’re not sure, find a staff member to ask. And if they aren’t sure, choose something else.

  • Better safe than sorry – social responsibility can no longer be ignored

    Better safe than sorry – social responsibility can no longer be ignored

    Social responsibility was the major theme at this year’s Boston Seafood Show.

    SeaChoice recently attended North America’s largest seafood expo, the Boston Seafood Show, which brought together over 20,000 attendees from industry, non-profit organizations, and the research sector, among many other stakeholders. There were more than 1,340 exhibits in the 516,000 square foot Boston Convention and Exhibition Centre, making for a packed and bustling three days (not to mention the overlap with Saint Patrick’s Day!).

    The event was full of big announcements, including celebrity partnerships and interesting product launches such as wild Alaskan Pollock noodles. The aspect we found most notable, however, was the huge focus on social responsibility, including ethical supply chain management and improving labor conditions. The event highlighted exciting initiatives and emerging leaders, which together should serve to embed social responsibility as an essential element of sustainability among the seafood industry.

    For example, the non-profit and seafood consultancy, FishWise, used the show to launch their “Roadmap for Improving Seafood Ethics,” otherwise know as RISE. The resource was developed in partnership with human rights experts, conservation scientists and industry to provide a clear path companies can take to make improvements to the labour conditions within their supply chains. This information packed, worker-centred supply chain management resource focuses on worker treatment, policy and enforcement, community voice, and traceability and data to get seafood companies on the right track. Several large companies are already using RISE as a resource hub to compliment their own social responsibility initiatives.

    The event also highlighted the importance of industry collaborations in addressing social sustainability issues in seafood. Among these is the collaboration between the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI) and the Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI) to develop a benchmark tool for social compliance. This tool will be used to move towards global alignment for certification schemes, helping to increase industry efficiency and seafood social responsibility.

    Another industry collaboration, the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), uses the collective influence of eight out of the ten largest seafood companies in the world to help protect the rights of future generations to healthy oceans and fisheries. Their presentation highlighted SeaBOS’s five ‘Task Force’ groups which together cover issues such as eliminating illegal fishing, modern slavery and forced labour, traceability and transparency, and ocean plastic pollution. With input from industry and scientific experts, the CEOs of these huge companies are focusing on solutions to the social and environmental problems that continue to challenge the seafood industry.

    The clear importance of holding the seafood supply chain accountable for social responsibility continued post-Boston, with the more recent announcement of the Marine Stewardship Council’s new measures to combat forced and child labour in supply chains. The update to MSC’s Chain of Custody Standard includes labour audits for companies involved in processing, packing or repacking or manual offloading from a fishery in countries that aren’t considered ‘low risk’.

    The industry shift to focus on social issues and sustainability is encouraging, though there is much work to be done. And of course, a focus on social issues needs to be in addition to the attention that must be paid to ongoing challenges with environmental sustainability, not instead of. Thankfully the two are not mutually exclusive. Incorporating social responsibility and reducing harmful labour practises will help to reduce illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, as well as improving the lives of workers all along the supply chain.

    At SeaChoice we are also focused on ensuring social responsibility is incorporated into our Canadian seafood supply chains. One of the ways we are doing this is through Seafood Progress, which includes new performance indicators to reflect what Canada’s largest retailers are doing to make sure their sourcing practices account for social responsibility. You can find out more about your retailer’s sustainable seafood commitments here.

  • It matters where your seafood comes from, but you usually have no idea

    It matters where your seafood comes from, but you usually have no idea

    Recent media headlines are making a strong case for why Canada should mandate “country of origin” (the country where the seafood was caught or farmed) on seafood labels.

    Right now, the government only mandates a seafood label to include common name, and for imported products, country of processing (or “last major transformation”). The latter can be, and often is, different from country of origin. This matters to your health and it matters to our oceans. Here’s why.

    Your health – According to last night’s news, superbugs are hiding among the imported shrimp available for purchase in Canadian retail stores. CBC’s Marketplace has found antibiotic-resistant bacteria on 17% of tested frozen shrimp products from major grocery stores – including eco-certified and organic products. According to Marketplace, India was the country of origin for more than half of the positive samples; Canada imports more shrimp from India than any other country.

    While CFIA reportedly tests for antibiotics on imported shrimp, it doesn’t currently test for bacteria. This allows the bugs to hitch a free ride into your kitchen while you remain none the wiser. While cooking might kill most bacteria, they can be easily transferred to surfaces and other foods during preparation. The solution? Consumers could choose to avoid imported shrimp, particularly those grown in India, until such time as CFIA figures out how to keep Canadians safe. However under currently labelling regulations consumers can’t be sure of where their favourite shrimp products were actually farmed.

    Our oceans – UK fish and chip shops made headlines when DNA tests suggested “UK fish and chip shops are selling endangered sharks”. Most tested fish samples turned out to be spiny dogfish, a shark species classified as Endangered in Europe. Consumers unwittingly contributing to the demise of European populations of this species would indeed be a headline worthy cause for concern. It appears, however, that the sharks were Canadian caught, hailing from non-threatened populations. In this case, the country of origin matters to whether the “fish” served along with the “chips” was sustainably sourced or not.

    Similar stories are playing out in our own backyard. Canadian officials seized Critically Endangered European eel on its way into Canada, intended for sushi restaurants and other diners across the country and worth millions of dollars. The species would simply have been sold as “eel” or “unagi”1, and consumed by Canadians without any knowledge that they were eating a highly threatened species.

    In the case of the fish and chips, the researchers called on the U.K. government to introduce more accurate food labelling in restaurants, to enable people to know what species they are eating and where it comes from. Retailers in the EU already adhere to much higher labelling standards. This is exactly what SeaChoice is asking of Canada’s government – but in our case we don’t have robust labelling requirements for retailers OR restaurants. Canadians are eating in the dark.

    SeaChoice is working to include mandatory country of origin labelling for seafood through the government’s Food Labelling Modernization Initiative. We are also actively encouraging retailers to voluntarily put more information on their seafood labels, to increase transparency, build consumer trust, and follow best practice. In the fall of 2018 over 3,200 Canadians agreed to #JoinTheShift, signing a letter asking their retailers to source local, traceable, properly labelled fish. The above examples show why retailers should continue to improve traceability and transparency in their supply chains, and voluntarily go above and beyond Canada’s weak policy requirements.

  • New year, new you? Reducing our carbon footprint in 2019

    A new Seafood Carbon Emissions Tool can help make even more sustainable seafood choices.

    It’s a new year which means new years resolutions. I have a few, the most important being reducing my carbon footprint. Being in the business of conservation I am used to bad news, some of which has kept me up at night. But nothing has kept me up like the October 2018 release of the IPCC report2. The IPCC report says “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes” are needed “in all aspects of society” if humanity is to contain the average global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The timeframe the IPCC has set for this is just over a decade away.

    There’s one simple critical takeaway point from that report: “we need to cut carbon pollution as much as possible, as fast as possible”. Not doing this has clear and imminent risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth. Not doing this will impact my children, your children – not hypothetical future generations but the ones on this earth right now.

    And what I know for sure is we are not doing enough – we need to do more. Our governments in particular need to do way more. But even if we make the changes we need to reach the 1.5°C target, our kids’ world will be so different. For example even at 1.5°C, the IPCC estimates that we’ll lose about 80% of coral reefs. That makes me sad, makes me mad, and makes me want to take action.

    There are many actions we can take as individuals to reduce our carbon footprint (read this if you think your individual actions don’t matter). Changes to our transportation habits are important ones – fly less, use more public transport. Other key actions relate to our eating habitats. As this article explains, what you eat is a key determinant of your impact on the planet – in particular how we get our protein. Spoiler alert, red meat is the biggest loser.

    Seafood lovers, on the other hand, can rejoice. When it comes to climate impacts, most seafood is much better than most terrestrial animal production. But as is the case with terrestrial animal protein, not all marine produced proteins stack up equally when it comes to climate impacts.

    Thanks to Seafood Watch and Dalhousie University you can now figure out the climate consequences of eating your favourite seafoods. Their recently released Seafood Carbon Emissions Tool was developed to allow businesses to see the carbon footprint of the seafood, wild or farmed, they purchase and even compare it to land-based protein sources. But as a consumer I find it really useful too.

    The tool includes estimates for over 150 combinations of species and gear type or farming method. The measurements are for emissions generated up to the dock where the fish is landed or, for farmed fish, everything that happens at the farm. Because seafood can be transported in many ways and over different distances, the measurements do not include processing or transportation to local markets. Canada’s poor labelling practices mean you may not know where your seafood has come from, but asking will let retailers and restaurants know people care about eating local seafood.

    Of course, carbon footprint shouldn’t be the only thing you consider when choosing seafood – the health of our oceans depends on all our actions. It is still important to choose seafood produced from healthy populations and with minimal impacts to habitats and other species. Thankfully Canadians have several options to make sustainable seafood decisions. As it turns out, some of the more environmentally sustainable choices, e.g. small bodied schooling fishes like sardine or mackerel and farmed shellfish like mussels and oysters, are also the most carbon friendly.

    I guess achieving my New Years resolution will involve eating more anchovies, sardines and mussels – along with more beans, nuts and seeds. In this way I will be contributing to the health of our planet, and also to my own.

    [1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations, dedicated to providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change and its political and economic impacts.

  • How are Canadian retailers really doing when it comes to seafood sustainability?

    Canada’s retailers have commitments to source sustainable seafood but often we have no idea if they are actually living up to them.

    Do you know what your retailer’s policy is on sourcing seafood? Every retailer has one, and these policies determine what steps, if any, the retailer is taking to make sure the seafood products it sells are environmentally sustainable and socially responsible – meaning that the people who produce them are getting fair wages and working conditions. Perhaps tellingly, not all retailers are transparent about how well they are living up to their policy and if they are actually sourcing products in line with their commitments.  

    SeaChoice designed Seafood Progress to help you find out. Seafood Progress looks at several aspects of transparency, from the general, such as “does the retailer have a publicly available commitment or policy to source more environmentally sustainable seafood?”, to the specific, such as “has the retailer published information about the fisheries/farms they source their products from?”. It assesses Canada’s largest seafood retailers on their commitments – what they say they are doing on seafood sustainability and what we know they are actually doing. This is because actions, not words, are the most important indicators of whether retailers are supporting good or bad environmental and social responsibility practices through their sourcing decisions. 

    Interestingly, all of Canada’s major retailers have made a public commitment to source more sustainable seafood; a consistency we didn’t see with any other commodities when we scrutinized the retailers’ websites. However, retailers’ environmental sustainability commitments vary considerably in their level of detail, use of credible external standards or seafood sustainability assessments, and reference to timelines for meeting their commitments. Even more variable were retailers’ commitments to source socially responsible seafood and their commitments to improve traceability of products in their seafood supply chains. With no publicly available information on either of these indicators and our requests for information unanswered, some retailers scored zero. 

    Out of all the major Canadian retailers, Seafood Progress reveals that only Buy-Low Foods, Federated Cooperatives Limited (“Co-op”), Loblaw, Safeway and Save-On Foods regularly publish information on how much of their procurement meets their commitment. That said, no Canadian retailers are currently disclosing which fisheries or farms they buy their seafood from – something that some British and American retailers have started doing either independently or through initiatives like the Ocean Disclosure Project.  

    Many Canadians are concerned about the social implications of their seafood, for example whether it was caught by modern day slaves, but only some retailers are transparent about their actions to address this critical issue. Four retailers – Buy-Low Foods, Loblaw, METRO, and Save-On Foods – told us that their suppliers have all signed a Code of Conduct requiring them to uphold all aspects of the retailer’s commitments.  And only three retailers – Loblaw, METRO and Walmart Canada – have social responsibility commitments that reference international standards and include clear actions or expectations on their suppliers to do everything they can to ensure that human rights abuses play no part in their supply chain.  

    SeaChoice has followed up with every retailer profiled in Seafood Progress with recommendations for how they could improve their scores by working closer to best practice, and many of these recommendations are related to transparency. Transparency about what retailers are doing, or requiring their suppliers to do, is important so that you can be sure that you’ll be able to buy seafood long into the future, without compromising the rights and dignity of people who work to get it to your plate.  

    This year, Canada’s major seafood retailers scored an average of 37 out of a possible 100 on Seafood Progress’s transparency step; there is room for improvement. In early 2019, SeaChoice will be reaching out to retailers again to review their Seafood Progress profiles and see what has changed; we’ll update the profiles accordingly. We are hoping that retailers will score better when it comes to transparency around their procurement practices, especially in disclosing how their procurement is meeting their commitment and their social responsibility actions.  

    In the meantime, check out your retailers’ profiles and let them know you care about the transparency of their sustainable seafood actions.  There is a button on every retailer’s profile so that you can quickly and easily write a tweet to them that will help bring this message home.  

  • Holding eco-certifications ‘responsible’ to their claims

    Holding eco-certifications ‘responsible’ to their claims

    Over the last decade or so, you’ve likely noticed an increasing abundance of eco-labels at your local seafood counter. There are now over 30 different seafood eco-labels globally; many of which are for farmed seafood. But what do they mean? Are they really a guarantee of sustainability?

    Recently we discussed the notion that all farmed seafood is bad. Spoiler alert, it’s not. However, for some sectors of the aquaculture industry, exponential growth has led to environmental and social challenges. In response to these challenges, eco-labels for farmed seafood have proliferated – to the tune of $3.6 billion U.S. in 2015.

    Eco-certifications, when done right, can help drive important sustainability gains. This is why SeaChoice advocates for consumers and retailers to use credible eco-certifications to guide their seafood purchasing decisions. In addition to being able to demonstrate improved environmental performance of eco-certified producers, credible eco-certifications’ practices must be transparent and inclusive, with procedures that are fair, and criteria that are rigorous and upheld.

    One of the most prominent farmed seafood eco-certifications is the Aquaculture Stewardship Council’s (ASC) “responsibly farmed” eco-label. Established following a series of multi-stakeholder dialogues, which two SeaChoice member groups were a part of, the ASC Salmon Standard claims to define global best practices for managing environmental and social impacts. Today, 27 per cent of the salmon farming industry by volume and about 11 per cent of the total number of salmon farms certified feature the ASC eco-label.

    On a quest to understand how ASC certified salmon farms stack up, SeaChoice conducted a comprehensive global review of all audits (i.e. compliance assessments) filed for each of the 257 certified salmon farms – from the first farm certified in 2014 through to March 15, 2018. Our analysis included all major Atlantic salmon farming regions, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Norway and Scotland.

    Our review highlighted some good news. We found that most ASC certified farms were successful at meeting several key environmental indicators of the Salmon Standard such as fish feed ratios, chemical treatments, escapes and lethal incidents involving marine mammals.

    But it also uncovered some worrying trends, including that changes to the auditing processes and the Standard are eroding the best practices codified in the Standard. This means that consumers and retailers can’t tell exactly how ‘responsible’ the products with the ASC logo really are.

    For example, the Salmon Standard asserts that farms “must meet 100 per cent of the [Standard] requirements” in order to be certified. This is an impressive claim that instills trust in consumers interested in making environmentally and socially responsible food choices.  However, we found this claim to be misleading given the majority of ASC certified farms don’t actually follow the Standard as written. Take a deeper dive into the report analysis here.

    Where eco-certifications are seen as rewarding ‘business as usual’, the opportunity for potential and much needed sustainability gains within the industry are lost. This is why SeaChoice embarked on this global review – to determine if the ASC certification equals ‘best practice’ salmon farms. If not, what improvements should be made to ensure the rigour and credibility of the scheme are upheld?

    SeaChoice values the role that eco-certifications can play in improving the sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture. Our intent in carrying out this review, as well as our engagement with other eco-labels such as the MSC, is to recommend actions that eco-labels can take to address deficiencies, maintain the scheme’s credibility and, ultimately, have a positive impact ‘on the water’. In the end, we want to ensure that consumers and retailers buying seafood with these eco-labels are truly supporting industry best practices for sustainability.