Canada Safeway ranked number one on Greenpeace’s annual list for supermarkets with sustainable seafood practices. Canada Safeway, bought by Sobeys last year, got a score of 74 out of 100 for its practices, followed by Loblaw with a score of 73 and Metro with 67. Canada Safeway was commended for offering sustainable options for products like canned tuna and farmed salmon. Safeway also recently announced that it wouldn’t source seafood from proposed ocean sanctuaries in the western and central Pacific Ocean, as well as fish from the Ross Sea ocean sanctuary.
Overwaitea Food Group came in fourth on the list, followed by Walmart Canada in fifth place, Federated Cooperatives at sixth, Sobeys taking the seventh spot and Costco at eighth, rounding out the list and failing to receive a passing grade.
“If [supermarket chains] really want to meet their commitments they are going to need to get stricter and more involved in improving the unsustainable fisheries and farms that they source from or start making harder sourcing decisions about which suppliers to move away from,” says Sarah King, Greenpeace Canada’s oceans campaign coordinator. “Promotion of unsustainable seafood also needs to stop. It undermines their sustainability efforts.”
A poll by Statcom for Greenpeace earlier this year showed that 74 per cent of Canadians want at least 10 per cent of oceans to be turned into sanctuaries.
