Whole Foods Market on Tuesday said it is on track to stop selling all red-rated tuna and swordfish products at its 300 stores nationwide by 22 April, Earth Day.
The announcement comes seven months after the United States’ largest natural food retailer launched a color-coded system for rating sustainable seafood.
Working with Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Austin, Texas-based retailer is using Monterey Bay’s red, yellow and green system for categorizing its wild seafood products. The new program expands upon Whole Foods’ partnership with the Marine Stewardship Council, in place since 1999.
The red-rated wild seafood products Whole Foods still sells will be phased out of stores by Earth Day 2012, except red-rated Atlantic cod and sole, which will be phased out by Earth Day 2013.
One of the new sources of green- and yellow-rated tuna originates from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, where fishermen catch tuna using pole and line. Whole Foods buyers also formed partnerships with a variety of small green-rated swordfish fisheries in the United States, and are looking for more. These U.S. day boats also use hand-line fishing gear.
“The sustainability status information has opened a terrific dialogue at the seafood counter. Shoppers are flexing their buying power to prompt change and help reverse trends of overfishing, exploitation and depletion in so many fisheries,” said David Pilat, Whole Foods’ global seafood coordinator.
“Whole Foods Market is proud of our partnerships with Blue Ocean Institute, Monterey Bay Aquarium and with our shoppers, buyers, fishermen and fisheries managers,” he added. “We are thrilled to have found fisheries that can provide better environmental choices to support the ecological health of our oceans and the abundance of marine life for generations to come.”
