Callander McDowell
Callander McDowell
reLAKSation no 409
Sustained: This week UK Supermarket chain Waitrose issued a press statement reporting that sales of fresh fish have increased by 15% in the last four weeks which they attribute to increased public awareness about ethical fishing following the release of the film the End of the Line. Waitrose say that they only sell fish from sustainable sources which they judge by four different criteria; it must be a species that is not considered threatened; it must be caught from a well managed fishery; it must be caught using responsible fishing methods and it must be fully traceable from sea to store.
Waitrose’s claim that they only sell sustainably sourced fish led us to wonder what sort of ethical declaration is made by other UK supermarket chains. We appreciate that as this information originates from their website, it may not totally reflect their complete position on ethical fishing.
Marks & Spencer also claim that all their fish is sustainable and that anyone buying their fish can be confident that any seafood has been caught in an environmentally responsible manner.
By comparison, Sainsbury’s who claim to be leading the way on sustainable fish have focused on ensuring that their five biggest sellers are 100% sustainable. These are cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns, which they say account for 80% of fish purchases. They aim to convert all these fish and seafood to green rated according to the Sainsbury’s decision tree (developed with key industry stakeholders) by 2010.
Meanwhile, all packs of fish sold in Tesco state that the fish is responsibly sourced and the same information appears on the labels used on the fish counter. The example of ethical sourcing highlighted on their website however relates only to farmed fish and not wild so it isn’t possible to delve any deeper through this route.
Asda say that they are dedicated to bringing fish from a sustainable source and that they hope that all the fish they sell will be sustainably sourced by next year. To help their customers make informed choices, all their fresh fish comes with information on where and when it was caught and how it was stored!
Morrisons say that all their fresh fish is sustainably sourced and local where possible.
Finally, the Co-op says that they care about where their fish comes from and more importantly how it is sourced. They say that you’ll be pleased to hear that all their own brand fish are responsibly sourced from well managed fisheries. They avoid all vulnerable species and never buy fish where the origin or method of catching is unknown. They have developed a bespoke system to identify which fish should be avoided and which should be selected. The Coop Group take the issue of fish sustainability very seriously and are committed to help the consumer make responsible sourcing a factor in their purchasing decisions.
This brief trawl of the corporate websites would indicate that all the leading supermarkets operate an ethical sourcing policy for fish and all are selling or very close to selling only sustainable fish. Given that these supermarkets now account for over 80% of fish sales in the UK, it would indicate that most fish now sold at retail in the UK is sustainably sourced.
Given that most fish and seafood is sustainably sourced, it does beg the question why does it need to be also certified. Most customers seem to prefer to leave the question of sustainable sourcing to their retailer. They hope that the fish on offer is as sustainably sourced as possible. It would seem that for most consumers sustainable sourcing is no different to any other buying choices. Supermarkets do not label their fish as safe to eat. Consumers simply expect it as a given that the fish they buy is safe to eat. Why would they now expect the fish to be labelled as sustainably sourced? The truth seems to be that they don’t. In fact they do prefer to leave this issue to the retailer. Those surveys that have asked about sustainability have shown that it is an issue which is of little concern to most fish consumers. Yes, the film, the End of the Line did increase consumer awareness of some of the issues of over-fishing but the main focus of the subsequent campaign appears to be whether top restaurant Nobu should be serving Bluefin tuna or not, and not whether the fish in your local chip shop is sustainably sourced.
Sustainably certified fisheries are back in the news this week with the widespread coverage that the Marine Stewardship Council logo has been redesigned to give it more meaning. The change to the logo involves the addition of the words ‘Certified Sustainable Seafood’ and ‘MSC’.
It doesn’t take rocket science to recognise that the changes have been necessary because most consumers didn’t understand what the logo meant. Since most consumers don’t really care about fish sustainability, the changes are unlikely to make any difference at all. In our opinion, most products that are entitled to display the MSC logo do so not to attract consumers (although that might be considered a bonus) but rather to declare their sustainable credentials to the environmental groups to show that they are taking the subject seriously.
All retailers are all too aware of the negative publicity that can be generated through a head office invasion of environmental activists. Is it a coincidence that following Greenpeace’s roof top protest AT Asda’s Leeds HQ in 2006, Asda fish counters now display a very large declaration of MSC chain of custody (how many of their customers know what this means?) even though most of the fish they sell is still not MSC certified.
More recently, US Trader Joe’s has provoked Greenpeace because the store has refused to engage with them over their seafood policy even though according to Seafood.com, the store has had one of the best run and innovative seafood programmes in the US. Despite this, Greenpeace has built a web site called Traitor Joe’s. Meanwhile in Canada, Greenpeace activists have demonstrated outside a number of different supermarket chains including Safeway, WalMart, Sobeys and A&P.
The presence of MSC labels may however not be sufficient to deter Greenpeace since at the beginning of the month Greenpeace issued a report suggesting that eco-labels such as that belonging to the MSC are not credible. They say that some highly unsuitable fisheries have been certified as sustainable mainly because of variations in the quality and consistency of the assessments. This is inevitable when using commercial assessment companies to act as third party certifiers.
One assessment now under way relates to BC Sockeye. The assessor has just announced that the four fisheries in British Columbia that have been assessed meet the requirements of the MSC as well managed and sustainable, yet locals have asked how whilst stock after stock has gone into tail spin, the MSC could even consider certifying these fisheries. Greenpeace may have a point.
Yet whilst Greenpeace murmurings about the MSC remain low key, retailers still regard it as a display of their sustainable credentials.
Marks & Spencer say that they are committed to ensuring that all their fresh and processed fish are MSC certified or equivalent and as a result they have been joint winner of the Marine Conservation Society’s award for sustainable fish for two years running.
Asda say that all their fish counters have completed the MSC’s chain of custody audit and they are now concentrating on helping their suppliers achieve MSC approval for their fisheries.
The Co-op’s goal is to operate their fish sourcing policy in line with the aims and objectives of the MSC, of which the Co-op has been a member and key supporter since its launch in 2007.
Morrison’s declaration about certified fisheries is perhaps one of the most interesting of those made by UK supermarkets. They say that “we have a lot of Marine Conservation Society certified sustainable fish on our counters including Mackerel, Dover sole, Cape Hake (when in season) and Alaskan salmon (when in season).”
If the Marine Stewardship Council is unable to get their message across to a major supermarket that appear to think that sustainable fish are certified by the MCS and not the MSC then perhaps it is not just their logo that the MSC should be rethinking!!
(http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Market-Street/Fishmonger1/Sustainable-fishing/ )
If Morrison’s are confused about the Marine Stewardship Council certification, then it is not surprising if consumers are too. Sainsbury’s says that they are now the leading retailer for MSC certified fish and have seen their sales double year on year since 2007/8. They have certainly widened the range of MSC products but their introduction seems illogical. Two Sainsbury’s labels are shown below, one for fresh haddock and the other for smoked haddock. Both fish are landed in Norway, yet the smoked fish is MSC certified whilst the fresh is not. This makes little sense. Is the fresh haddock not sustainable whilst the smoked fish is?
Perhaps Waitrose have the right idea when they say that they do accept third party certification such as MSC as evidence of sustainability but such schemes are currently insufficient to cover the full range of fish that Waitrose sells, which is why they use their own criteria to judge whether a fish is sustainably sourced or not.
Finally and most puzzling is that according to Greenpeace, 71-78 per cent of the world's fisheries are 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or 'significantly depleted'. Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction; many more are on the verge. If fish stocks are in such a poor state, how can all the fish be sold in UK supermarket be sourced so sustainably?
Lidl: Possibly one of the reasons why UK supermarkets are able to sell so much sustainable fish is because all the unsustainable fish is sent to the French market. IntraFish recently reported that much of the fish sold in French supermarkets is unsustainable. It may not be much better in Spain with Greenpeace’s report of Spanish supermarket rankings finding only Lidl is reaching a level of sustainable sourcing, which is acceptable. Lidl scored 37% with Alcampo next at 18% whilst Carrefour only achieved 5%.
This ranking would seem to put Lidl well ahead of their Spanish competition for sustainable sourcing but they are not. The scores are actually misleading and Lidl has achieved its high ranking only because it sells so little fish and seafood. Like its UK and French stores, Lidl in Spain sells less than a dozen fish and seafood products and because it is so price conscious its products are made from species like Alaskan pollock, not because it is sustainable but because it is cheap. Carrefour, with its huge range of fish products just cannot compete.
War of words: IntraFish reports that the Non-Governmental Organisation ‘Food and Water Watch’ are engaged in a war of words with Kona Blue Water Farms over the company’s claims that its farm-raised fish are more sustainable than those that are wild-caught. This dispute is yet just another illustration about how ridiculous the whole question about sustainability has become. The word is now so overused with regard to fish supply that we don’t know what it really means anymore. Clearly, this latest war of words only goes to show that everyone has their own idea as to what it should be.
We, at Callander McDowell, have never been great fans of the idea of ‘sustainable’ fish supply because the human population always has some impact on every thing it does including the daily hunt for food. Our preference is to look at the implications of the fish catch from a perspective of ‘population dynamics’. Man is no different to any other animal, whose population is regulated by the availability of food and the influence of natural events such as weather etc. Populations rise whilst food availability is good but eventually the population becomes so big that there is not enough food to sustain it and the population collapses allowing food supply to recover. The actual size of the population is limited by a series of theoretical ‘lines’ that when plotted on a graph, run above and below the population. The highest and lowest of these lines are at a point when the population will actually die.
What separates man from other animals in relation to these population controls is that man has become intelligent enough by his own actions to push these ‘lines’ apart enabling the population to keep on growing way past when in the natural, it would have collapsed. The simplest example of this was back in history when as the population grew and wild food became insufficient to support the population, man learnt to grow his food through the development of farming. In the same way, to protect himself, man has learnt to build houses, leading to towns and cities.
Man has been extremely clever in exploiting his environment and this includes the sea and oceans where in recent times new technology has meant that fishing has become ever more efficient to help satisfy man’s increasing demand for fish and seafood. It is this increased expertise at catching fish has now led to the demand to ensure that fish stocks are sustainable. This should mean that not more fish are caught than can be replenished by reproduction but clearly, this is not the definition that is in current use.
The reality is that our demand for fish and seafood means that there is ever increasing pressure on fish stocks which will eventually lead to total collapse. There appears to be three options. 1. Continue fishing until the stock collapses. 2. Stop or reduce fishing allowing stocks to recover but reducing the availability of food to the human population or 3. Follow the example of terrestrial food supply and engage in farming, thus continuing to supply fish but without the pressure on wild stocks. None of the options are truly sustainable because they all have implications on some aspect of our world. That is how it is. Man is just leaving his mark.
The environmental groups, who have prompted this discussion, want to set up marine reserves in much of the sea leaving the rest to be fishing at low pressure. This will not allow us to meet world demand for fish and seafood so it will become the preserve of only those who are prepared to pay the most to buy it. Those parts of the sea set aside as marine reserves will effectively become a museum.
There have been regular calls to protect the natural environment but much of our countryside has already been moulded by man’s influence. Even over the longer time periods, the environment has changed and life has come and gone. It may not seem it but even individually we are in a state of change as our genes alter when passed down through the generations. Nothing stays the same despite as much as we would like it to.
In the case of Kona Blue and the Food and Water Watch, neither argument is truly sustainable since both farming and fishing have an impact on the environment. The Washington based NGO argue that Kona Blue’s claims relies too much on unpublished data for its calculations and doesn’t disclose all the information about what the fish are fed and uses methods that are unclear.
By comparison, it is clearly apparent where Food and Water Watch stand on the issue of sustainability. Even a brief look at their website shows that they care little about sustainability and instead are more concerned about promoting a nationalistic ideal.
They claim that they are working to ensure clean water and safe food yet their objection to marine aquaculture appears to be that it will threaten jobs in US fishing communities. They also object to imported fish and seafood (you never know where it comes from) and every single recommendation in their seafood guide is for US caught fish. Despite their objection to farming, they are happy to recommend US farmed tilapia whilst saying imported tilapia should be avoided. This has nothing to do with sustainability but rather their blinkered vision of the US ideal.
As to whether farmed fish are more sustainable than wild caught, the answer is of course they are. Farming is the only sensible way to help reduce the fishing pressure on wild stocks that allows our demand for fish and seafood to be satisfied.