Sustainable Seafood
Sustainability is one of those tricky words that gets tossed around the natural foods world. We have emotional and intellectual responses and definitions for the general idea that for something to be sustainable it must go on indefinitely without harm to itself or its surroundings. Sometimes what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. It would be impossible to have a unified theory of sustainability because different animals have different needs. In terms of seafood, in order to be sustainable, freshwater fish need to be farmed and saltwater fish should generally be wild caught. But things get more granular still. Not all wild caught fish is the same. How wild caught fish is harvested can affect sea life from the surface all the way to the sea floor via bycatch. Bycatch is the unintentional catch of species other than what is being fished for. Bycatch is typically not sold but thrown away. Additionally, some nets and lines used in fishing can destroy sea life habitats.
Knowledge of seafood industry practices has generally been low, leading to third party seafood sustainability certifiers filling the void. These agencies look at how fisheries (wild caught fish) and aquaculture (farmed fish) interact with the environment they grow and harvest in with care taken to ensure species will be able to maintain themselves, harvests are safe for consumers, and that seafood is handled in a humane way. Wheatsville meat and seafood department utilizes two of these agencies to determine our
seafood selection.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
program has been around since 1999 and is based out of an actual aquarium. Their program is one of the first resources developed to address seafood sustainability. They use science based, peer reviewed methodology to evaluate fisheries and aquaculture. Monterey Bay provides regional pocket guides as well as a website to raise consumer awareness of the best choices in sustainable seafood. Wheatsville meat
and seafood department only offers “best choice”, “certified”, and “good alternative” choices from
the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch list.
The Marine Stewardship Council is a non-profit organization based in London that use a third-party team to establish the highest standards of traceability and sustainability. Certification under this program is voluntary and standards exceed internationally recognized best practices for fisheries. Products with the Marine Stewardship Council seal can be traced back to a certified sustainable fishery. The Marine Stewardship Council is the only global wild-capture fisheries certification program that simultaneously meets best practice requirements set by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative, and ISEAL.