If you’ve been on facebook the past couple of days perhaps you’ve seen Greenpeace’s image of our 2013 canned tuna sustainability ranking results. Turns out over 88,000 and counting already have, and upwards of 1000 facebookers have shared it with their friends. Word is getting around that when it comes to ocean-friendly tuna, some brands are getting on board, while others have their head in the can.
Walmart, Unico and Clover Leaf took the bottom three positions for their failure to take any steps toward providing their customers, and our oceans, with any hope of more sustainable products. The big problem with company inaction? Tonnes and tonnes of wasted marine life. Juvenile bigeye tuna from vulnerable stocks , sharks species of concern, beautiful trigger fish, rays, sea turtles and even the occasional marine mammal are often caught and killed in destructive fishing methods like purse seines employing fish aggregating devices (FADs) and longlines.
If you’ve ever seen footage of a fishing vessel taking no care to safeguard the oceans that supply its income, it can be downright gory. With that in mind, after seeing Clover Leaf’s new coupons noting that canned tuna had “gone gourmet” we thought...gourmet, really? More like gory. So we decided to make our own coupon warning customers that Clover Leaf product labels may be enticing, but the truth about the tuna in its cans is unappetizing. Fished wastefully, often from unhealthy tuna stocks.
Greenpeace volunteers across the country set out to supermarket chains that are major sellers of Clover Leaf, marking shelves with coupons, and our ranking image to help customers make more informed decisions.
And what has Clover Leaf’s response to its last place position in our ranking been so far? Spreading lies to distract from its unwillingness to join most Canadian brands in their efforts to improve their tuna sourcing policies and practices. If you’ve received their email noting that we don’t employ scientists (clearly having not visited our website noting our science unit at the University of Exeter, or met the numerous other Greenpeacers that studied science in their lives before becoming earth and ocean defenders); that we only campaign to save the oceans to raise money (funny accusation for a non-profit coming from a short-term profit-driven company); and, that we don’t share information about our ranking methodology, which we do for any company that asks about how we arrived at their score or rank, rest assured that Greenpeace’s work to transform the tuna industry into a sustainable and equitable one is about ensuring tuna, healthy oceans and intact coastal state livelihoods for tomorrow by protecting them today.
To help us urge Clover Leaf, Unico and Walmart to change, and to see how other brands stack up, click here. And join facebook.com/ChangeCloverLeaf to stay up to date on our campaign. And, stay tuned for more action in the coming weeks.