Publix Super Markets Inc is embarking on a new seafood grading system. The US company, which failed Greenpeace’s Sustainable Seafood Scorecard for the second year, has hired a conservation group to assess seafood sold at its stores.
Publix will be working in conjunction with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) in the new grading scale system which will be based on sustainability and other environmental standards.
More than 300 seafood products sold at Publix, from fresh to frozen shrimp and tuna to canned seafood will be under scrutiny. The assessment includes wild and farmed seafood.
Publix sells 47 products certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), including, king and sockeye salmon, Patagonian Bay scallops, Alaskan coho, Alaskan pollock, sablefish and halibut.
The company has been working for three years to develop a sustainable seafood programme and the new process will unfold next year.
By August, Publix expects that SFP will help to categorize supplies into the following three groups: 'Sustainable', 'Needs Improvement', and 'Needs Major Improvement'. The company also has been working with the Ocean Conservancy and the Ocean Trust to develop a strategy.
Greenpeace United States rated Publix seventeenth among 20 supermarkets in the fourth edition of its sustainable seafood scorecard ‘Carting Away the Oceans’, released last month.
Supermarket chain Target moved up from fourth place to receive top ranking displacing Wegmans to second place while Whole Foods maintained third place from the previous ranking.
