Online supermarket Ocado praised for updating seafood sourcing policy

M&S Food’s online arm, Ocado, has been praised by the US-based charity Lever Foundation for updating its seafood sourcing policy.

Lever Foundation, which works primarily in Asia to build sustainable, humane food systems, worked with Ocado on the update and said the changes will improve the welfare of farmed fish and crustaceans across the retailer’s supply chain.

The new policy, published as part of Ocado Retail’s Sourcing with Integrity programme, applies to all farmed fish and crustaceans within the Ocado Own Range, spanning the chilled, frozen, and ambient seafood categories. Fish used as an ingredient in any of Ocado’s food products (excluding pet food) also falls within the policy’s scope.

Ocado Retail is owned 50-50 by M&S Food and Ocado Group, and sells M&S branded food products including Scottish salmon.

Sentient creatures

“At Ocado Retail Limited, we recognise that all fish, cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans are sentient and as such, have the capacity to feel pain and suffer, in alignment with the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 and scientific literature,” the company noted in its updated policy. “We are committed to their welfare throughout the supply chain.”

Ocado’s updated policy requires daily tracking of water conditions (temperature, pH, turbidity, oxygen, ammonia, and carbon dioxide), disease, and mortality; disease prevention by vaccination and treatment of disease outbreaks with medication; and slaughter to be carried out using electrical or percussion/mechanical stunning to produce instant insensibility followed by death while insensate.

The changes won’t affect Scottish Sea Farms, which supplies salmon to M&S, because it already meets the new requirements as part of its husbandry practices and agreements with M&S.

Valued cooperation

“We congratulate Ocado Retail on strengthening its seafood sourcing policy and expanding its welfare requirements for farmed fish and crustaceans,” said Astrid Duque, sustainability programme director at Lever Foundation.

“We have really valued working with the Ocado team on these great measures, which will make a meaningful difference to the welfare of aquatic animals in the company’s supply chain. We hope that more retailers take the same great steps forward that Ocado has done.”

In recent years, other UK retailers including Sainsbury’s and Co-op UK, as well as international chains such as Costco and S Group, have similarly established strong policies to protect the welfare of fish and crustaceans in their global supply chains, said Lever Foundation.