Whole Foods Market to stoped selling red-rated swordfish and tuna until 2013 ~ LAWOK LEPAS

Whole Foods Market to stoped selling red-rated swordfish and tuna until 2013

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Whole Foods Market is on track to stop selling all red-rated swordfish and tuna at its seafood counters nationwide by Earth Day, 22 April 2011.

Last September, Whole Foods Market announced this deadline for sourcing swordfish and tuna more sustainably as part of a larger initiative to move toward fully-sustainable seafood departments. For more than a decade, the company has maintained a strong partnership with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The latest addition to Whole Foods Market’s seafood sustainability initiative provides shoppers with transparent information about the sustainability status of non-MSC certified, wild-caught seafood and features color-coded, science-based sustainability ratings for wild-caught seafood created by partners Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“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 Market global seafood coordinator.

Whole Foods Market’s seafood buyers source tuna and swordfish from green- and yellow-rated fisheries such as those using handlines, which have low to no bycatch.

One of the new sources of green- and yellow-rated tuna comes from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean where fishermen catch tuna traditionally using a low-impact pole and line.

Company buyers have also formed partnerships with a variety of small green-rated swordfish fisheries in the United States and are looking for more. These US day boats also use low-impact handline fishing gear.

Whole Foods Market’s color-coded ratings make it easy for shoppers to make informed choices at the seafood case. Green or “best choice” ratings indicate a species is relatively abundant and is caught in environmentally-friendly ways; yellow or “good alternative” ratings mean some concerns exist with the species’ status or catch methods; and red or “avoid” ratings mean that for now the species is suffering from overfishing, or that current fishing methods harm other marine life or habitats.

Remaining red-rated wild-caught seafood will be phased out of Whole Foods Market stores by Earth Day 2012 with the exception of Atlantic cod and sole, which will have an extension until Earth Day 2013.

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