All retailers have commitments to sustainable seafood, but are they helping the oceans?

All major Canadian retailers have commitments to protect the world’s last wild food source, but each commitment is unique, and can translate into a wide range of actions and seafood choices. SeaChoice developed Seafood Progress to give Canadian consumers information about retailers’ seafood sustainability commitments and how well they are performing against them. Seafood Progress uses 22 performance indicators to assess retailers against six steps that form the vision for sustainable seafood developed by environmental groups across North America.

The average assessment scores show that while most retailers have detailed policies and are collecting important information about the seafood they source, they can do a better job increasing transparency by making that information public and supporting improvements to fisheries and fish farms.

Key results from our first round of assessments (2018 Report) include:

• Step 1. Make a public commitment – Canada’s largest food retailers generally have relatively detailed commitments to source environmentally sustainable seafood. However, there is a wide range in the detail and level of ambition regarding commitments to social sustainability and traceability.
• Step 2. Collect data – Most Canadian retailers are collecting the information needed to support their commitment.
• Step 3. Source responsibly – Many Canadian retailers are clearly taking steps to source products that are in line with their commitment but some do not publish this information.
• Step 4. Be transparent – Some Canadian retailers need to improve their transparency in how well they are performing against their commitments. Having a robust commitment is important, but it means little if we do not know how they are living up to it.
• Step 5. Educate – Most Canadian retailers could do better to educate their staff, consumers and suppliers on their sustainable seafood commitments and procurement.
• Step 6. Support improvements – This was the step where retailers scored the lowest across the board, but it is arguably one of the most important to realize change on the water. If retailers are going to sell some of the more unsustainable seafood products available in Canada, they should be taking action to improve fisheries and farm practices.

Read more about the findings and recommendations that Seafood Progress revealed in our 2018 Report.