[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in October as part of SeafoodSource’s Key Buyer Industry Update.]
Seafood companies are taking a new approach when it comes to sustainability.
Rather than presenting their products as a collection of sustainability merit badges or tackling supply chain issues in isolation, seafood companies are designing their entire products around impact-focused solutions from their inception.
In doing so, companies can bake sustainability into their production processess, offering a compelling and verifiable “whole product” narrative to consumers. Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.-based Acme Smoked Fish, for example, has built a compelling narrative around its seafood offerings by developing a climate strategy to guide its product development.
“Our climate work has been about taking a business growth, risk mitigation, and diversification strategy. We’ve learned from the Gulf of Maine how ocean warming has changed access to species over time and continues to do so, particularly in the lobster fishery [there]. The smoked fish business is dominated by Atlantic salmon farming and lake whitefish – a limited number of species that are sensitive to environmental conditions,” Acme Chief People and Sustainability Officer Rob Snyder told Seafood2030.
Rather than solely focusing on the many certifications Acme supports, the company focuses on being a “Citizen of Seafood” – highlighting all the work that goes into delivering a responsible seafood product to market, as well as the work done outside their own supply chains to promote seafood as a sustainable, climate-friendly protein. For instance, Acme donates 1 percent of its sales to support the Acme Smoked Fish Seafood Industry Climate Awards. In 2023, Acme awarded USD 70,000 (EUR 63,500) to three winners who engaged in early-stage efforts to reduce the seafood industry’s carbon footprint.
Faroese salmon company Hiddenfjord also adopted a clear strategy and vision for adopting sustainable practices, resulting in production of one of the more carbon-friendly proteins on the market. Hiddenfjord’s biggest initiative to reduce its carbon emissions stemmed from addressing airfreight, which emits around 50 times as much carbon dioxide as sea freight, according to the company. In 2020, Hiddenfjord made the decision to stop all air freight, resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions from overseas transportation by 94 percent.
“It takes nine days to transport our [fresh] salmon by sea from the Faroe Islands to the East Coast of the U.S. Transporting by sea allows us to have complete control of the cold chain, which has a positive effect on the salmon’s quality and shelf life. You don’t always have that same control when transporting by plane, which sometimes would result in customers having to re-ice boxes,” Hiddenfjord Brand and Marketing Manager Levi Hanssen said.
It was a commitment that meant dropping some important markets – fresh salmon to Asia, for one – and required some explaining to existing customers on why longer shipping times were necessary.
Another example comes from the Seattle Fish Co., which prides itself on offering its customers a variety of sustainable seafood. However, Seattle Fish recognized the sustainability narrative was challenging for consumers to digest – even its own staff had a hard time sifting through the complexity of verification programs.
To help cut through the haze, Seattle Fish developed its Eco Score program.
“We developed the Eco Score program, which was trying to help our customers understand the certifications and the environmental and habitat impacts of our fish, and we felt like we were having an impact through our actions and with our customers,” Seattle Fish Sustainability Consultant and former COO Hamish Walker told Seafood2030.
The Eco Score program provides a simplified scoring of certifications and ratings based on Seattle Fish’s own criteria, and the result is a synthesis of large amounts of data presented to customers in a simple, easy-to-understand format. As Seattle Fish increases its efforts to reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, the focus on real impact and delivering real value to customers creates a more compelling narrative.
“On issues like seafood certifications or climate, distributors have to show leadership because chefs and consumers are looking to us for guidance and trust. Then the market starts to catch on. Right now, the general public may not be as tapped into seafood’s great climate-friendly and planet-friendly values as we are [as distributors], but if we can take the lead and show consumers why they should be interested in and excited about seafood, we can make a positive difference for our industry and the planet,” Seattle Fish Marketing and Brand Specialist Savanna Ronco said.
By taking a whole product approach, seafood providers are creating a narrative that can be shared with consumers and differentiate their offerings from companies that rely solely on certifications and third-party audits to convey their sustainability work.
To learn more about companies taking a whole product approach to sustainability, check out our Seafood2030 info brief online at seafoodsource.com/seafood2030.
