ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 20 — MOM's Organic Market founder, Scott Nash, is calling on Whole Foods to act more quickly on their new sustainable seafood labeling program. "Whole Foods has set a goal to stop selling all red-labeled endangered seafood species by 2013. These species are in immediate danger of collapse. Whole Foods' color label system shows consumers that they mostly offer red and yellow species of seafood — and very little green-labeled seafood. By waiting until 2013, Whole Foods continues to be a conscious contributor to the overfishing of our oceans and is irresponsible in not acting with a real commitment to solve this problem now," says Nash.
In 2008, MOM's chose to only carry sustainable green-labeled seafood throughout its grocery departments, including canned and frozen seafood.
"We don't have 3 years to wait to take action to save our oceans' ecosystems and species. In my opinion, we cannot act fast enough on this issue and I don't understand why Whole Foods isn't acting faster," says Nash.
Since 2008, on Greenpeace's seafood rating scorecard, MOM's Organic Market has rated higher than any other national grocery chain. "Whole Foods needs to do the right thing and put ethics before profits and stop selling these endangered species of seafood immediately. They are using different certifiers, not applying their program to all of their products, selling many red and yellow products, have random and far in the future timelines for discontinuing certain items, and many products in their fresh seafood department and grocery department remain unlabeled altogether. In a nutshell, this color label system is necessary at Whole Foods only because they choose to sell many unsustainable species of seafood," says Nash.
Source: MOM's Organic Market