Canada’s tuna huggers have gone high-tech. Today we released our Sustainable Canned Tuna Guide app that will make it easier for tuna consumers to determine which products are ocean-friendly while in the canned seafood aisle of their supermarket. If you have an iPhone or Android, and speak French or English, our super user-friendly app can help you make healthier choices for our oceans. Here’s how it works.
First, download the app. Easy peasy.
Second, scroll through the better option list to see if your favourite brand is there. Is there a product you usually buy? Flaked light, solid white? If you recognize the can, and it’s in the green zone, then it’s a more sustainable choice.
Third, if you don’t see your favourite product or brand in the better option list, then either scroll down or type the name of the brand you usually buy in the search bar (eg. Ocean’s, Safeway, President’s Choice, Gold Seal, Western Family, etc).
Fourth, once it pops up, first check to see if it is orange or red rated, and then get more information by tapping the icons to learn more information about the type of tuna and overall health of the species found in that product (fishy icon), whether the tuna was sourced from a fishery using a destructive or selective fishing method (fisher icon), and whether the company has pledged to be sustainable in the future (check mark icon), even if it isn’t now.
Fifth, click on the can to learn more about the product including whether that brand offers a better option. No? Then best to choose a similar green rated product offered by another brand.
Lastly, click the app’s take action button and sign a petition to urge Canada’s biggest brand, Clover Leaf, to be ocean-friendly instead of an ocean fail.
Don’t eat tuna? The oceans thank you. But if you’re concerned about the health of our oceans then downloading it is still a great idea to take action to encourage bad brands to do better, and to share this info with your friends and family.
Download the app now!
While sustainable seafood guides exists, this is the first to focus on particular tuna products. Unlike our Canned Tuna Sustainable Ranking, which scores and ranks 14 well-known brands in Canada, the Sustainable Canned Tuna Guide app includes most brands available across the country. Greenpeace trolled (a more sustainable tuna fishing method, by the way) supermarkets and corner stores for as many brands as we could find. And there were many! Brands we didn’t even know existed.
Many Greenpeace volunteers and supporters helped us uncover these brands, so as usual our work couldn’t be possible without the awesome ocean-defenders on the ground.
Once we collected information about which brands were offered, we evaluated each brand on a product by product basis and rated them green (better option), orange (work in progress) or red (bad option). While the list of red products is many times longer than the list of green products, the tide is slowly turning on tuna. Well-known brands are taking steps to offer their customers ocean-friendly tuna options. If you’re going to purchase tuna, support those brands. If you’re looking at your brand of choice and you’re seeing red, go green!