Grocery store chain Kroger scored poorly on Greenpeace’s latest sustainable seafood seller’s list, ranking toward the bottom for the third year in a row.
The eighth edition of Greenpeace’s annual report, Carting Away the Oceans, said Kroger, the fifth-largest food retailer in the world, still sells the most “Red List” species out of the 26 major retailers the environmental activist group evaluated. It is the third year in a row that Kroger has received the dubious distinction.
“When Greenpeace started ranking America’s retailers on seafood sustainability in 2008, every company failed,” said James Mitchell, Greenpeace’s senior oceans campaigner. “We’ve seen huge improvements since then, yet grocery giants like Kroger are still stocking too many threatened Red List species, which are often caught using highly destructive fishing methods.”
Retailers Whole Foods and Safeway topped the rankings, while Hy-Vee, making the list for the first time, scored in the top five. The group ranked the retailers based on how sustainably fisheries caught seafood sourced by the retail chains. Roundy's, Bi-Lo, Save Mart and Publix, according to Greenpeace, “failed altogether.”
“Consumers want to be able to walk into their local grocery store and know that all the options are sustainable,” Mitchell said. “That’s why Greenpeace is pushing companies like Bi-Lo, Save Mart and Roundy’s to drastically improve their sourcing, so that making the right decision is easy for their customers.”
