No more Traitor Joe's! Less than a year after Greenpeace launched a campaign attacking Trader Joe's for selling "red list" seafood, the grocery chain has announced that it will shift all of its seafood purchases to sustainable sources by the end of 2012. In the meantime, Trader Joe's has already stopped selling Chilean Sea Bass and Orange Roughy, and Red Snapper comes off the shelves this month.
Citing the desire to meet customer concerns, Trader Joe's indicated that it plans to:
• Shift all seafood purchases to sustainable sources by December 31, 2012. This includes frozen, fresh, canned, etc.
• Work with third-party, science-based organizations to establish definitions and parameters.
• Enhance its labeling for all seafood items to include information on species' Latin names, origin and catch or production method.
• Use its purchasing power to leverage change within the seafood supply community.
Greenpeace has already updated its Traitor Joe's site to incorporate the new information and applaud the company for "seeing the light."
Read more:
• A Note to Our Customers About Trader Joe's Seafood (Trader Joe's)
• Trader Joe’s gets a Little Greener (Greenpeace)
Related: Greenpeace's Supermarket Seafood Scorecard, Plus Good News from Target
(Image: Flickr member arndog licensed under Creative Commons)
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Perhaps a dumb question about the country of origin labeling in the photo: Is the fish "produced" in the USA simply because it was seasoned there? Clearly the fish is "from" Greenland (though perhaps caught in international waters...)
I'm making a guess with no data to support, but I'm going with yes, it's a product of the US because it was seasoned and processed (sorted, bagged, shipped) here. It needs to be a product of somewhere, right?
I'm also guessing they put the country of harvest on there so consumers know what ocean/region it came from. Some fish are plentiful in some areas and scarce in others, the way I understand it.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong ;)
Yay TJ's--another reason to love them!
This is going to make it so much easier to buy seafood. I rarely cook it myself these days, since it's hard to be sure you're getting something sustainable.
I was so surprised to learn that Trader Joe's wasn't using sustainable seafood...they seem to be so gung-ho about all of that sort of stuff. All of their home/personal care products are cruelty free (involve no animal testing), so I was baffled when I saw that they were selling chilean sea bass...seems kind of like a contradiction.
I'm also always surprised by how they package all of thier produce in unnecessary excessive packaging - they use so much styrofoam, plastic and plastic wrap that they DON'T need to use. Why aren't they like normal grocery stores that just have stuff out, and if you choose to use a bag to group things together you can? Maybe that will be their next thing to fix.
For a list of the common brands that are cruelty free, visit:
http://www.abbeycatchat.com/2010/03/caring-consumer.html
I don't like that a lot of their frozen veggies come from China. You have to look closely at their labels to see where the food comes from.