Retailers across the country, including Whole Foods, are upping their tuna game with new sustainability standards focused on how the fish was caught. “Last Wednesday Whole Foods Market announced that by January 2018, all canned tuna sold in its stores or used in its prepared foods departments will be sourced from fisheries that use only pole-and-line, troll or handline catch methods that eliminate bycatch (accidental harvest of other fish, birds or mammals) because fishermen are catching tuna one at a time,” says NPR.
Whole Foods will also demand that all canned tuna in its stores come from fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council or from fisheries given a green (best choice) or yellow (good) ranking by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Safina Center. The tuna must also adhere to certain traceability standards.
Safeway led the way with higher sustainability requirements on tuna in 2012, agreeing to source its private label skipjack canned tuna from fisheries that didn’t use fish-aggregating devices. Known as FADs, they can be anything from a raft or a large floating platform that attract lots of little fish and eventually the big fish that eat them. FADs are notorious for high levels of bycatch, since sensitive species like dolphins are often pulled into fishermen’s nets.
Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle and the Midwest chain Hy-Vee are also promoting sustainably-caught tuna policies similar to those implemented by Whole Foods.