 Background
As a leading grocery retailer and one prominent within the fresh fish category - with a market share of over 20%, Sainsbury's aims to be at the forefront of fish sustainability.
Popular fish species such as cod, haddock and salmon are key lines for us, however we are all too aware of the threat of over fishing and depleting fish stocks, and concern for this is also increasing amongst shoppers.
Tackling this problem forms part of our wider commitment to ‘sourcing with integrity’, one of the five corporate responsibility principles that guide us. Moreover, sustainable fishing is crucial to achieving our business goal of providing healthy, safe, fresh, tasty food at fair prices.
How the issue was tackled
We have a comprehensive, and ongoing, programme of action we refer to as ‘Fish for now, Fish for the Future’. This directs our bold sustainability measures and involved the following:
Extensive stakeholder consultation
We launched a major review of fish sourcing in 2006. The review and implementation process covered supplier conferences to look at obstacles to overcome, meeting with government ministers and consulting NGO’s along the way.
Our sustainability rating system
We then devised a robust sustainability rating system to base our sourcing decisions, thereby ensuring we eliminate the supply of any endangered or threatened fish.
Tackling the big lines first
We were then able to make changes to some of our top selling species, which in turn made a big difference to the sustainability of the fish we sell. This included converting the catch methods for lines such as cod, haddock and tuna to highly sustainable ones.
Benefits and impacts
- Reducing the reliance of our sales on the top five fish species, offering customers the widest variety of sustainable fish, and the leading amount of lines which are certified as sustainable by the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council).
- Tackling the popular species first: we recently won the backing of Greenpeace for selling the most sustainable tinned Tuna on the market, and we have also been accredited by Freedom Food on our Scottish ‘Responsibly Sourced’ salmon which is farmed in sites inspected to meet strict RSPCA welfare standards.
- Protecting a valuable resource, an important commodity and key part of the global eco-system. For example, our Regional sourcing of fish for our counters is reducing our carbon footprint as well as supporting local fishermen.
Advice to others
We would encourage all consumers to actively ask where the fish they eat comes from. Ensure you are buying from retailers that can guarantee their catch methods, farming and sourcing is sustainable. This will help us all protect Fish stocks now, and in the future.
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