New Greenpeace supermarket seafood test
USA: Wednesday, Greenpeace released the second edition of its seafood sustainability scorecard. Only four supermarket chains received passing grades, while sixteen failed the test.
The passing supermarkets were Whole Foods, Ahold USA, Target and Harris Teeter. According to the organizations press release, this indicated a small, but significant shift in purchasing practices and policies.
In June, all 20 leading supermarket chains in the U.S. failed the first of Greenpeace's seafood sustainability analyses. The report demonstrated that the chains are ignoring scientific warnings about the crisis facing global fisheries and the marine environment when they stock their shelves with seafood. Many are continuing to stock "red list" seafood like orange roughy, swordfish, and Chilean sea bass - some of the world's most critically imperiled species. None of the companies featured in the report currently have policies and practices that guarantee they won't sell seafood from fisheries that are harming sea turtles, dolphins, seals, sea lions, and other marine mammals.
While all 20 supermarkets continue to sell destructively fished and overfished species, several companies have begun developing and implementing sustainable seafood policies and practices. To date, eight companies have demonstrated their commitment to improving their seafood sustainability by removing from sale some imperiled species such as orange roughy and sharks. These are: Whole Foods, Ahold USA (brand names include Stop & Shop and Giant), Target, Wegmans, Safeway (Dominick's, Genuardi's, Randall's and Von's), Wal-Mart, A&P (The Food Emporium, Pathmark, Super Fresh, Waldbaums), and Price Chopper.
The rankings follow:
1. Whole Foods Market 2. Ahold USA 3. Target 4. Harris Teeter 5. Wal-Mart 6. Safeway 7. Wegmans 8. Kroger 9. Aldi 10. Costco 11. A & P 12. Giant Eagle 13. Publix 14. Winn-Dixie 15. Delhaize 16. Supervalu 17. Trader Joe's 18. Meijer 19. H.E. Butt 20. Price Chopper
