John West

Cheap seafood costs too much in human suffering

Posted by Willie — 14 December 2015 at 1:09pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Dita Alangkara/Associated Press
Children and teenagers sit together to be registered by officials during a raid on a shrimp shed in Samut Sakhon, Thailand.

About 8 years ago, I had the joy of doing a live news interview from a fish processing factory in Grimsby. Being in a fish processing factory in Grimsby was fine, it was wearing a hair net on national TV that wasn’t.

The story being discussed was seafood brand Young’s decision to ship UK-caught shrimp all the way to Thailand and back, a move that was ‘better’ in terms of CO2 emissions, and cheaper for consumers.

But what price do we pay for cheap seafood?

Customer outrage over tuna giants John West and Thai Union

Posted by Ariana Densham — 21 October 2015 at 10:56am - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Marie Derome
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on John West's broken sustainability promise

Tuna has finally gone mainstream, following the outcry in the media that John West* has broken its sustainability and traceability promises. 

We’ve reached millions of people, from This Morning with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show, to The Times front page and countless other newspapers, everyone is outraged by the embarrassing progress John West has made meeting its sustainability promise to customers. 

John West's broken promises

Posted by Ariana Densham — 12 October 2015 at 10:35am - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Emily Buchanan

It’s only been a few days since our tuna league table exposed John West’s broken promise to only source sustainable tuna, but it’s been making waves everywhere.  We’ve had celebrities like Gillian Anderson coming out in support of the campaign, and were even invited on This Morning with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to talk about how John West’s customers have been duped.

The winners and losers: tinned tuna league table kicks off new campaign to end destructive fishing

Posted by Ariana Densham — 2 October 2015 at 4:29pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Emily Buchanan
John West are failing to meet their commitment to source sustainable tuna

The new Greenpeace tinned tuna league table exposes the wide gulf between UK supermarkets and brands which have taken sustainability seriously and those which have simply broken promises to clean up. Use this to help you decide which brands to buy and which to avoid until they improve. 

#JustTuna

For the first time, this league table ranks brands on a wider range of issues. Yes, there’s fishing methods of course, but we’ve also rated them on;

Is John West really “vehemently against” dirty tuna fishing?

Posted by Ariana Densham — 24 October 2014 at 3:29pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Greenpeace
Will John West end their use of destructive tuna fishing that harms other marine life?

This is how John West responded after over 100,000 messages were sent demanding they stick to their promise to completely phase out fish aggregation devices (FADs).

The Italian Job: reeling in the Italian tuna industry

Posted by simon clydesdale — 9 March 2012 at 1:56pm - Comments
Tuna and bycatch caught in the east Pacific
All rights reserved. Credit: Alex Hofford/Greenpeace
Tuna and bycatch caught in the east Pacific

The sands in the tuna campaign have shifted again, and the oceans and tuna will ultimately be better off for it. Our Italian colleagues have just announced that the local tinned tuna brand Mareblu has committed to stop using Fads (fish aggregation devices) - the destructive marine minefields that have been blighting the oceans for decades.

The video the global tuna industry doesn’t want you to see

Posted by simon clydesdale — 17 November 2011 at 2:22pm - Comments

Today we've released shocking footage of ocean life dying in gruesome ways at the hands of industrial tuna fishers in the Pacific Ocean. The footage was shot by a New Zealand helicopter pilot turned whistleblower, who undertook aerial reconnaissance for tuna boats in the Pacific in 2009.

Same fish, new business model

Posted by simon clydesdale — 17 August 2011 at 5:40pm - Comments

The hubbub has now died down since we announced that John West’s shift completed a clean sweep of change among major players in the UK tuna market. And it’s been a week since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight: The Battle Continues reinforced this message, making people think about how we use and need to protect the extraordinary resources of the waters that dominate this globe.

Fish Fighting for the oceans! But the battle continues

Posted by simon clydesdale — 8 August 2011 at 9:39pm - Comments

Tonight Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall broadcast Hugh’s Fish Fight: The Battle Continues, his follow-up to the influential BAFTA-winning Fish Fight series broadcast in January. Hugh and his team have clearly been very busy over the last 6 months, and not just in securing Hugh a swish new haircut.

And then there were none: John West changes its tuna to drop FADs

Posted by simon clydesdale — 26 July 2011 at 12:00am - Comments

You did it! Today John West, the last of the major UK players to resist a shift to sustainable tuna, finally committed to change their tuna. After more than 51,000 emails, a lot of negotiation, some interesting stickering initiatives, and becoming utterly isolated amongst the UK industry, John West have changed their policies.

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