ADVANCING LEADERSHIP IN SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD

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Making Waves

FishWise and its members are consistently highlighted in the world's top seafood industry publications as well as mainstream public media outlets. By working with businesses to demonstrate what is not only possible, but also profitable, FishWise is at the forefront of seafood sustainability. Through this leadership, we make headlines and help our partners receive the recognition they deserve.

FishWise and Target Partner for Ocean Health

Created on Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Target Commits to Selling Only Sustainable and Traceable Seafood by 2015

MINNEAPOLIS (October 13, 2011) – Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) today announced it is committed to selling only sustainable and traceable seafood in its stores by 2015. This initiative will be achieved through a partnership with FishWise and continued engagement with industry and vendor partners, and will apply to all of Target’s fresh and frozen seafood products.

“When Target eliminated farmed salmon in favor of wild-caught salmon last year, we took the first step in a long-term commitment to improving the sustainability of our seafood assortment,” said Shawn Gensch, vice president, Marketing, who oversees the company’s sustainability programs. “As we continue toward 100 percent sustainable seafood, guests can shop with confidence knowing that Target’s seafood products are both healthy for their family and environmentally responsible.”

Target defines sustainable and traceable seafood as the sourcing of seafood products that are caught or raised in an environmentally sensitive manner and maintain Target’s business needs without jeopardizing the affected ecosystems. For example, Target’s seafood assortment has been transitioning to more sustainable products over the past two years, including the elimination of Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and farmed salmon from all stores. To achieve its plan to source only sustainable seafood by 2015, Target has partnered with FishWise, a nonprofit organization that works with seafood companies to implement environmentally responsible business practices.

“Target has shown itself to be a leader in sustainable seafood,” said Tobias Aguirre, executive director at FishWise. “This new and deeper 2015 commitment should both serve as an example for the rest of the industry and result in real change on the water.”

Over the next few years, Target plans to:

Continue to engage suppliers to identify and provide the most responsible seafood options for its guests;
Encourage source fisheries and farms to enter into improvement projects that result in credible certification and verifiable change;
Continue transitioning Market Pantry and Archer Farms brands to more sustainable seafood products;
Educate guests about seafood sustainability and encourage them to make informed seafood purchases;
Continue sourcing seafood products from third-party certified fisheries and farms; and
Engage with the appropriate government agencies, NGOs, industry groups and certification bodies to trace seafood from the supply chain to its source.

Progress on Target’s sustainable seafood initiatives, along with all of Target’s sustainability commitments, can be followed at Target.com/hereforgood.

Click here to download the full press release.

A version of this story was run by many major news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, Business Weekly, and Forbes. The story was viewed over 87,000,000 times, a great indication that the general public is increasingly interested in sustainable seafood, business leadership, and ocean conservation.

FishWise Retailers Lead the Industry in Sustainable Seafood

Created on Tuesday, 12 April 2011

Today, Greenpeace released an update to their Carting Away the Oceans campaign that ranks grocery retailers across the US on their sustainable seafood policies and practices.

Thanks to the collaboration between FishWise and our retail partners, both big and small, every participating company has increased its overall score since last year. FishWise partners have the highest scores in the country and are taking an important stand for the health of our oceans. Major reasons for these increases are the support for policy initiatives such as bycatch reduction and the creation of marine reserves, as well as increases in the overall proportion of seafood covered by their sustainable seafood policies. Our partners have shown that its possible to support ocean conservation and be profitable at the same time. The FishWise approach is clearly at the leading edge, as we work with players throughout the supply chain to redefine what it means to be a responsible seafood company.

Special congratulations and recognition go to Sacramento Natural Foods which is the top ranked retailer in California, as well as Safeway which jumped from #4 last year to become the highest ranked national retailer. Together, FishWise retail partners should be extremely proud of their performance as they are truly advancing leadership in sustainable seafood.

Congratulations to all FishWise retailers that improved their scores!

Bi-Rite Market - 87%
BriarPatch Co-op Community Market - 86%
Davis Food Co-op - 86%
The Co-op Natural Food Stores of New Hampshire and Vermont - 83%
Metcalfe’s Market - 83.25%
The Natural Grocery Company - 83.5%
New Frontiers Natural Marketplace - 82.75%
New Leaf Community Markets - 86.5%
Nugget Markets - 83%
Sacramento Natural Foods - 90.5%
Surf Supermaket - 86%
Safeway- 64.61%

Follow this link to download the full report.

Safeway Unveils its '2015' Seafood Policy

Created on Monday, 04 April 2011

Monday, 04 April 2011 10:33

The following article, written by James Wright, appeared on SeafoodSource.com on March 22, 2011:

Safeway, the Pleasanton, Calif.-based retailer that operates 1,702 stores in the United States and Canada and an additional 161 stores in Mexico, on Tuesday announced the details and goals of its sustainable seafood sourcing policy.

Phil Gibson, group director-seafood for Safeway, unveiled his company's commitment to environmental stewardship at a panel discussion titled "Putting Sustainable Seafood Policies Into Practice: Lessons Learned from Businesses" at the International Boston Seafood Show.

The major takeaway from Gibson's remarks was that all of Safeway's fresh and frozen seafood will be sustainable and traceable, or in a credible, time-bound improvement process to reach these goals by 2015.

"Safeway has been working on sustainable seafood for several years, but due to the complexity, we needed an outside resource to design a program tailored to our needs," said Gibson. "We partnered with FishWise because they balance bottom-line concerns with a real commitment to ocean conservation."

Tobias Aguirre, executive director of FishWise, which is based in Santa Cruz, Calif., said Safeway's commitment is the result of a collaborative and competitive effort with other non-governmental organizations like Sustainable Fisheries Partnership of Seattle, the World Wildlife Fund's Aquaculture Dialogues and forums like the Food Marketing Institute's Sustainable Seafood Working Group.

"I believe it's the most progressive commitment yet made by a retailer," said Aguirre moments after the conference concluded. He added that Safeway's sustainable seafood policy is one that other retailers could follow.

Gibson said Safeway chose to work with FishWise because the organization is "focused on business and solutions, not an agenda." Safeway's 2009 sales totaled USD 40.9 billion.

Safeway's commitment has four key aspects: First, partnering with a credible group to form a sustainable seafood task force, which it did with FishWise, a process that began in 2008.

Supplier outreach (FishWise surveyed all of Safeway's seafood vendors to analyze the performance of the fisheries and aquaculture operations they source from), staff training and customer outreach are the others. Safeway also created a customer brochure titled, "Always a Good Catch," that summarizes the company's internal mandates.

"With a company of our size, we know our 2015 commitment is ambitious," said Gibson. "But, we also know that it is important. For us, the key is to think big and to collaborate with groups that share our vision of a sustainable seafood industry. Kids probably aren't thinking much about seafood now, but they will when they grow up, and we want them to be able to enjoy healthy sustainable seafood just like we have."

Member Restaurant Tataki Featured in SF Chronicle

Created on Sunday, 20 February 2011

Glance at the menu of Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar in San Francisco, and you'll notice some glaring omissions. Notably missing from this tiny, 7-month-old establishment are such traditional staples as bluefin toro, hamachi, unagi, octopus and ever-popular spider rolls made with blue crabs from Asia. Because these species are considered overfished, the restaurant is not serving them. Tataki is believed to be the only sustainable sushi bar in North America, the first to tout "sushi without guilt." It may not be the last, especially after the publication this month of three new, groundbreaking sustainable sushi guides by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Blue Ocean Institute and Environmental Defense Fund.

Read the full article here

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