Greenpeace Confronts Costco in London over Failure to Protect Seafood

Activists canvassed the area with a large banner reading “Don’t Buy, Don’t Sell Redlist Fish” and handed out information leaflets to customers. Another banner targeted the store directly, reading “Costco: Wholesale ocean destruction.”

“Greenpeace is at Costco today to let consumers know that Canada’s supermarkets are major accomplices in ocean destruction,” said Kevin Hill, a Greenpeace oceans activist. “We are asking their customers to help us convince Costco to stop the sale of Redlist fish and begin selling sustainable seafood.”

Today is day six of the Greenpeace confrontation campaign against major supermarket chains. There were also activities in two other cities today. During the campaign, activists will challenge store management at grocery outlets in 19 cities in five provinces. So far, Greenpeace has had activities at stores in Victoria, Kelowna, Nelson, South Surrey, B.C.; North Bay, Peterborough, Kingston, Hamilton, Ont.; Trois-Rivières, Victoriaville, Rimouski and Chicoutimi, Que.

The London action follows the release of a new Greenpeace report entitled Out of Stock, Out of Excuses: Ranking retailers on seafood sustainability. The report ranks Canada’s major grocery chains on their sustainability efforts under seven criteria, including the quality of their seafood policies and the number of Redlist species sold.

The Costco chain received a failing grade in part because it refuses to release a sustainable seafood policy. Greenpeace delivered a copy of the ranking report to the store’s manager.

“Costco has a poor ranking in the Greenpeace report because it refuses to take action to protect our fish stocks from commercial extinction,” said Hill. “We want their customers to help us stop Costco from fishing our oceans to death.”

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Editor’s Note:

A backgrounder and the full Out of Stock, Out of Excuses report are available at the end of the news release “Ranking fails all Canadian supermarkets on supporting sustainable seafood” on the Greenpeace press centre:www.greenpeace.ca/press

The 15 Redlist species are: Arctic surf clams, Atlantic cod, Atlantic haddock, Atlantic halibut, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean seabass, Greenland halibut, New Zealand hoki, orange roughy, sharks, skates and rays, swordfish, tropical shrimp and prawns, and tuna.

For more information, please contact:
Kevin Hill, Oceans Activist, (647) 502-4889 (on location in London)