The environmental watchdog Greenpeace has gone after Trader Joe’s with a snarky campaign called Traitor Joe’s, complete with a website, a Traitor Joe’s Twitter account, and a singing fish telegram for consumers to let the company know how they feel about the store’s unsustainable seafood policies. According to the latest Sustainable Seafood Scorecard from Greenpeace, Trader Joe’s gets a big fat F, the worst of all national supermarket chains, for continuing to sell imperiled fish such as orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, and swordfish.
“Our oceans are in crisis and Trader Joe’s not only lacks a sustainable seafood policy, it has taken no initiative in this area and continues to sell 15 of the 22 “red listâ€Â species in our report. If Trader Joe’s doesn’t change their behavior, it’s doubtful they will have any fish left to sell in the near future.” – Casson Trenor, Greenpeace’s Senior Markets Campaigner
Greenpeace activists in San Francisco went to local stores dressed in Hawaiian shirts similar to those worn by Trader Joe’s employees, and were accompanied by two orange roughy mascots in an attempt to raise awareness to the store’s practice of selling fish on the “red list” (endangered species listed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization). The activists set up a voting booth and asked customers to “vote for sustainable seafood”, and then presented Trader Joe’s with a mock citation.
The campaign, part of a global push by Greenpeace for the survival of fisheries and marine ecosystems over the long-term, urges supermarkets to remove these “red-list”, or most at-risk species, from their stores.
Greenpeace asks supermarkets to step up and meet the consumer demand for sustainable seafood by refusing to sell products from fisheries that exploit vulnerable species, are destructive to marine habitat and cause negative impacts on other species, or fisheries that are managed poorly.
If you eat fish, download the Sustainable Seafood Scorecard (PDF) so you know what to look for and where to shop to reduce the effects of overfishing of critical marine species. You can also head over to Facebook and become a fan of Traitor Joe’s to get the latest from the campaign.
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