Greenpeace campaign archive: published 2006-11-15
A Recipe for Change
The seafood industry is changing rapidly. Standards and practices established long ago for the catching, processing and selling of seafood are adapting to meet a new and demanding standard - that of sustainability. In the last year alone, businesses the length of the supply chain in the UK, Europe and beyond have begun to seriously address the crisis taking place in our oceans that has been caused by overfishing and destructive fishing methods.
Last year we challenged the major UK retailers to begin the process of ensuring that all the seafood they sell comes from sustainable seafood. Our new report, 'A Recipe for Change ', reviews the progress made by the major UK retailers over the last 12 months.
In just one year, most of the major retailers have enthusiastically engaged in starting to improve their seafood - removing from sale some of the most destructively fished species, increasing their ranges of better-managed stocks and helping to find ways to fish in less destructive ways.
You can find out how your supermarket is performing on seafood by checking out our up-dated league table.
New Challenges
Despite the progress made so far, there is still much for supermarkets to do! In our report we are making two new challenges to supermarkets:
- Ban seafood species that are caught using the destructive fishing method called beam trawling. Find out why beam trawling is destructive and wasteful here.
- Make sure that all of the skate and ray species they sell are caught sustainably. If they are unable to prove this, then they should stop selling these species.
"environmental groups have radically changed our industry. 2006 will be the year sustainability finally took a firm hold on the seafood industry"Drew Cherry , Intrafish Magazine, March 2006 |
Take action - help to defend our oceans today!
If you regularly shop at any of the following supermarkets: ASDA, Co-op; Iceland; Morrison's; Sainsbury's; Somerfield or Tesco - please take a moment to send a vital message to them . Tell them that unless they take immediate steps to source their seafood sustainably, there won't be any long-term future for their fish-counters.
Find out more about what we want supermarkets to do here.
