Greenpeace had criticised Tesco for Oriental & Pacific tinned tuna sale. (Photo Credit: Tesco)

Greenpeace claims victory in campaign against Tesco

Greenpeace and the television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall publicly welcomed the fact that a producer of cut-price tuna agreed to only sell sustainable products.

The NGO launched a campaign after finding out the supermarket Tesco was selling Oriental & Pacific tinned tuna, a firm linked to a controversial fishing method that can kill sharks, rays and turtles.

In early March Tesco was ranked at the bottom of the major supermarkets for tinned tuna sustainability in the Greenpeace 2014 tuna league table. Since then, over 85,000 people have called on Philip Clarke, CEO of Tesco, to remove Oriental & Pacific from its shelves – a request the supermarket rejected.

According to the NGO, the supermarket had previously committed to making its own-brand tuna sustainable – but as soon as it fulfilled that promise it then introduced unsustainable Oriental & Pacific tuna, in a stroke undermining its public commitment to protecting the oceans.

“It’s great news that the manufacturers of Oriental & Pacific have reacted to public pressure. Their tinned tuna is caught using a method that kills sharks, rays and turtles, but next year that will end. That means this dodgy tuna will no longer be found on the shelves of Britain’s biggest supermarket, but that’s no thanks to Tesco. They failed to move when we revealed how Oriental & Pacific tuna is caught, they undermined their own public commitment to protect the oceans and even undercut their own brand tuna. They should now make a public commitment that any new brands of tinned tuna they sell will be caught using sustainable methods,” Ariana Densham, Greenpeace UK Oceans Campaigner stated.

LDH – the owners of the Oriental & Pacific brand - said in the statement that they will commit to sustainable tuna supplies from April 2015 and in the meantime will only be dealing in a pre-existing stockpile of less sustainable tuna.

Tesco pointed out it had had talks with LDH about improving fishing methods and had offered the services of its sustainability experts, The Guardian reported.

Greenpeace remarked it would now be examining tuna sold in discount stores, such as Aldi and Lidl, where more and more shoppers are heading.

The NGO highlighted both those stores offered pole-and-line caught tinned fish and had said they were committed to improving the sustainability of their fish, but the majority of their tuna was caught using the purse seine method.

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