Online retailer FreshDirect announced yesterday that it has partnered with Blue Ocean Institute and the Marine Stewardship Council to provide certified sustainable seafood to its customers.
The online retailer is using a stoplight-designed format for more than 40 species of seafood, with the sustainability information provided by Blue Ocean. Green-rated species are relatively abundant in the areas they are caught; yellow-rated species have some problems with their population status or catch/farming methods (or information is insufficient for evaluating); and red-rated species have a combination of problems or farming methods have serious environmental impacts.
FreshDirect provides links on its Web site for Blue Ocean, founded in 2003 by Carl Safina and Mercedes Lee to inspire a closer relationship with the sea through science, art and literature. Blue Ocean published one of the first sustainable seafood guides in the United States and recently launched Fishphone, a sustainable seafood text-messaging service
The site also labels species that are MSC certified, such as wild Alaska salmon. A total of 26 fisheries worldwide carry the eco-label from the London-based group.
FreshDirect serves 250,000 customers in the New York and New Jersey area, including Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Westchester and Nassau County.
