Whole Foods color codes fish

Mrs.A&J

Thought this was kind of a neat story. I don't shop at Whole Foods, myself, but I buy according to the Seafood Watch guide. Anything that will make people more aware of the impact of their choices is a good thing.

http://www.takepart.com/news/2010/09/13/seeking-sustainability-whole-foods-red-lights-green-lights-its-seafood?fb_js_fbu=757915220

Alisha_A

Red warns that the species is overfished or caught in a way that harms marine ecosystems. (Yellow indicates reason for concern, but not a definitive stance, on the abudance of a particular fish or the way it's caught.)

Whole Foods also declared it will rid its shelves of "red light" species by Earth Day 2013.

Uhhhh... it takes 2 years to stop selling overfished or harmfully-caught fish??

I almost entirely eat local wild salmon or farmed pink Oregon shrimp so I get lazy about looking at these things. Wow.

Just months ago, Trader Joe's buckled to pressure from environmental activists?including Greenpeace, which labeled the company Traitor Joe's?and announced it would sell strictly sustainably sourced seafood by the end of 2012. Greenpeace surveys found that Trader Joe's was serving 14 of 22 red-list seafoods.

This is great -- although again, what takes so long?? -- I've always felt the fish at TJ's seemed very Lots of imported stuff.

SuperGreen

I think it's a really good step, good for WF.  I agree with Alisha though as to why phasing out the red lights should take so long.  They're probably doing it so they can find a new distributor for a desired fish that catches them in a less environmentally destructive way (line-caught instead of bottom traweling, for example).  If they just cut all the red light fish at once, I imagine a bunch of yuppies would freak out that they can't buy that fish anymore.

The long lag time seems like a common thing nowadays.  I just heard on NPR that the new regulations requiring banks to hold more money in reserve won't take effect for eight years. 

leighzlou

Whole Foods is doing that for a couple of reasons. First is what supergreen said-so foodies don't freak when the fish they want isn't there. They also need time to educate consumers about which fish are sustainable and which aren't and why. The hope is that as consumers learn what a "red" fish is they will choose not to buy it. If they don't buy it, it will put pressure on the fishermen to start catching fish in a more sustainable way. If Whole Foods just took it all out right now, all that would happen is that people would just find another store that sells it and nothing would change. Education is key.

SuperGreen

leighzlou:

Whole Foods is doing that for a couple of reasons. First is what supergreen said-so foodies don't freak when the fish they want isn't there. They also need time to educate consumers about which fish are sustainable and which aren't and why. The hope is that as consumers learn what a "red" fish is they will choose not to buy it. If they don't buy it, it will put pressure on the fishermen to start catching fish in a more sustainable way. If Whole Foods just took it all out right now, all that would happen is that people would just find another store that sells it and nothing would change. Education is key.

That's a good thought, I didn't think of that.  You're so smart leigh