Target Promises To Sell Only Sustainable Seafood

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October 18, 2011

Target announced it would sell only sustainable and traceable seafood in its stores by 2015, working with suppliers and transitioning store brands to meet the new goals as well.

The initiative will be achieved through a partnership with FishWise to work with industry and vendor partners. It will apply to all of Target’s fresh and frozen seafood products including the Market Pantry and Archer Farms store brands.

“When Target eliminated farmed salmon in favor of wild-caught salmon last year, we took the first step in a long-term commitment to improving the sustainability of our seafood assortment,” said Shawn Gensch, vice president of marketing, overseeing the company’s sustainability programs. Target said it is moving toward selling 100 percent sustainable seafood.

Target defines sustainable and traceable seafood as the sourcing of seafood products that are caught or raised in an environmentally sensitive manner and maintain Target’s business needs without jeopardizing the affected ecosystems. For example, Target’s seafood assortment has been transitioning to more sustainable products over the past two years, including the elimination of Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and farmed salmon from all stores.

To achieve its plan to source only sustainable seafood by 2015, Target has partnered with FishWise, a nonprofit organization that works with seafood companies to implement environmentally responsible business practices. “Target has shown itself to be a leader in sustainable seafood,” said Tobias Aguirre, executive director at FishWise. “This new and deeper 2015 commitment should both serve as an example for the rest of the industry and result in real change on the water.”

Over the next few years, Target plans to:

• Continue transitioning Market Pantry and Archer Farms brands to more sustainable seafood products;
• Continue to engage suppliers to identify and provide the most responsible seafood options for its guests;
• Encourage source fisheries and farms to enter into improvement projects that result in credible certification and verifiable change;
• Educate guests about seafood sustainability and encourage them to make informed seafood purchases;
• Continue sourcing seafood products from third-party certified fisheries and farms; and
• Engage with the appropriate government agencies, NGOs, industry groups and certification bodies to trace seafood from the supply chain to its source.

Target is a member of the Consumer Goods Forum, a global, parity-based industry network that brings together the CEOs and senior management of more than 650 retailers, manufacturers, service providers and other stakeholders across 70 countries. Last month the Forum released the Global Protocol on Packaging Sustainability (GPPS) to enable the consumer goods industry to better assess the relative sustainability of packaging. Target was a member of the steering committee that helped formulate the guidelines.

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