David Smith, Sobeys vice-president of sustainability, confirmed the chain will unveil a sustainability plan later this summer. (Photo: Sobeys/FIS)

Sobeys developing seafood strategy

CANADA
Friday, May 28, 2010, 21:40 (GMT + 9)

Retailing giant Sobeys is taking a different tack than its retail competitors in sourcing sustainable seafood.

"We’re looking at how to fix the most problematic areas," David Smith, Sobeys vice- president of sustainability, said in an interview late Wednesday from company offices in Mississauga, Ont, The Chronicle Herald reports.

Loblaw, Canada’s largest grocer, announced recently that it is on track to ensure that all the seafood products it sells, come from sustainable sources by the end of 2013.

The Montreal-based Metro grocery chain announced last week that it will begin implementing a sustainable seafood policy in September that will be in effect in all its supermarkets in Quebec and Ontario by June 2011.

Smith said Sobeys, which has stopped selling shark, skate, orange roughy and bluefin tuna, recognizes the importance of sustainability and is working with a number of non-governmental organizations, including the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and Greenpeace, to develop a sustainable seafood strategy.

"Our focus, in contrast to other retailers, is to look at how to improve (the situation)," he said, rather than simply delisting seafood products at risk.

"Delisting is not the first step," he said. "The first step is to understand the problem."

Smith said Sobeys, the country’s second-largest grocery chain, is in "the final throes" of developing its sustainable seafood action plan.

"We’ll announce something later this summer," he said, adding that Sobeys isn’t preoccupied with eco-labelling like some of its competitors.

"Our focus is on better practices," he said, noting that Sobeys sells seven Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified products and 27 BAP (best aquaculture practices) products certified by the Aquaculture Certification Council.

Beth Hunter, ocean co-ordinator with Greenpeace Canada, said Sobeys has been involved in a "massive," multi-year consultation process to develop a sustainable seafood strategy.

But she said the process slowed to a "near halt" in the past year before picking up speed recently.

"We’re encouraged but they’re still sort of behind," she said.

Sobeys placed second behind Loblaw in Greenpeace’s 2009 ranking of retailers on seafood sustainability.

Hunter said neither retailer scored very high in the ranking -- Loblaw scored 2.4 out of 10 while Sobeys scored 1.1. Metro scored 0.1.

Greenpeace will release its 2010 ranking next week, she said.

Related articles:

- Metro to sell only sustainable fish
- Loblaw progresses toward 100 pct sustainable seafood

By Denise Recalde
[email protected]
www.seafood.media
 

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