A warm summer day, a cold drink and fish on the grill. It doesn't get much better. But how do you know if your fish is sustainable? It can be a challenge — especially considering SeaChoice found just 11 per cent of seafood available in Canada in 2016 was rated as a "best choice." Many retailers have sustainable seafood policies, but how good are they?
To help consumers choose wisely, SeaChoice used to rank seafood using a traffic light system — red (avoid), yellow (some concerns) and green (best choice). U.S.-based Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program and Canada's Ocean Wise continue to offer similar rankings. SeaChoice recently launched its Seafood Progress online resource to shift the focus to retailers, but with consumers in mind.
Although all major Canadian retailers have made a commitment to sustainable seafood, their products and definitions of "sustainable" vary, which can make consumer choices difficult. Using information from retailers and public sources, SeaChoice — a Living Oceans Society, Ecology Action Centre and David Suzuki Foundation partnership — is applying 22 performance indicators to assess sustainable seafood commitments made by Buy-Low Foods, Costco, Co-op, Loblaws, Metro, Save-On-Foods, Safeway, Sobeys and Wal-Mart Canada. The indicators are based on "six steps that form the vision for sustainable seafood developed by environmental groups across North America."
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