FishWise Partners Lead The Way for Whole Foods Seafood Program

Recent news about Whole Foods launching a seafood rating system is yet another example that businesses are stepping up to meet the challenges of ocean conservation through sustainable seafood strategies. Like FishWise partners and other seafood businesses before them, Whole Foods has made the commendable step of drawing upon the science based recommendations of Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch (SFW) and Blue Ocean Institute (BOI) in order to better inform its customers on sustainable seafood options.

FishWise has worked with SFW and BOI, colleague organizations in the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, for many years to translate their scientific outputs into easy to use tools for businesses and consumers. In fact, in 2002, New Leaf Community Markets (Santa Cruz, CA) partnered with FishWise to become the first retailer in North America to implement a comprehensive color-coded sustainable seafood labeling program. Together with label and supplier audits, staff training, consumer outreach materials, hands-on support, monthly updates, and sourcing assistance, this approach has provided a strong example to other retailers, including Whole Foods, that it is possible to meet financial goals while contributing to ocean conservation. Other early FishWise partners that paved the way for responsible, transparent seafood business practices include retailers like Andronico's Community Markets and distributors like Central Coast Seafood (for a full list, click here). Now in its eighth year of operation, FishWise is working with 16 member retailers in 25 states, as well as three distributor partners and 18 producer partners across the country.

Our support, and their hard work, has resulted in FishWise member retailers being consistently ranked as among the most sustainable by Greenpeace in its Retailer Scorecard. The companies were many of the first to embrace transparency and to enable their customers to make seafood choices that are healthy for themselves and the oceans. It is great to see a national retailer like Whole Foods employ this same approach and we hope to see more companies develop programs suited to meet their particular needs.

Building on lessons learned from these early leaders, FishWise partnered with Safeway Inc. in January 2010 to develop a comprehensive program for its more than 1,500 stores across the country. Through supplier assessments, sourcing improvement plans, employee training, and by providing science based information to its customers, FishWise is working with Safeway to meet its conservation goals as a major North American retailer. This partnership emphasizes offering seafood that is both sustainable and affordable, as well as engaging with suppliers of 'red' products to incentivize and promote credible environmental improvements. FishWise understands the need for flexibility in working with seafood businesses and thus draws on a variety of strategies.     

In all of these examples, it is clear that NGOs and many seafood businesses are becoming increasingly aligned and consistent in their approaches to sustainable seafood. Its no longer a sufficient business strategy to simply repeat the much used excuses: “too much information, too many NGOs, too confusing”. Now is the time to get down to the real work necessary to ensure a long term supply of seafood and healthy ocean ecosystems.