Pressure Grows on Sealord as US Food Giant Changes its Tuna

Auckland, 15 February 2012 – Pressure is growing on Sealord to change its tuna sourcing policy following big moves by one of the largest food retailers in the United States, says Greenpeace.

Grocery giant Safeway has just announced (1) that it will stop sourcing tuna for its home brand cans which has been caught using a fishing method which kills other marine life – the same method used by fleets supplying Sealord.

The destructive method uses large purse seine nets set around fish aggregation devices (FADs). Tuna instinctively gather around FADs which also attract other ocean life including threatened sharks, juvenile tuna and other ocean creatures which are then scooped up by the purse seine nets. Known by the fishing industry as ‘bycatch’ these creatures are often thrown back into the sea injured, dead or dying.

“FADs combined with purse seine nets are like ocean death traps and are responsible for an obscene waste of ocean life,” says Greenpeace New Zealand Oceans Campaigner Karli Thomas.
“The Safeway announcement again demonstrates the growing global demand by retailers and consumers for sustainably caught tuna.

“Sealord, which is New Zealand’s biggest brand of canned tuna, is falling behind the rest of the world. Sealord must follow the lead of companies like Safeway and all the major UK tuna brands which have stopped using, or committed to phase FAD-caught tuna.”

In June last year New Zealand retailer Foodstuffs announced that it would change most of its Pams range of canned tuna to FAD-free by the end of 2011. (2)

Safeway’s announcement means that 4.5 million cans of tuna per year will now be sourced sustainably, enough to form a tower of tuna cans 148 kilometres high.

Greenpeace is campaigning to end the use of destructive fishing methods such as the use of FADs by purse seiners, and to preserve 40 per cent of the world’s oceans in marine reserves.

Notes:

1) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/safeway-announces-new-sustainable-sourcing-practice-for-tuna-2012-02-10

2) Foodstuffs (which includes New World, PAK'nSAVE and Four Square stores) announced their shift away from FAD-caught tuna on Word Oceans Day 2011. http://www.foodstuffs.co.nz/media-centre/news--media/foodstuffs-hooks-sustainable-tuna-for-world-ocean-day

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