Greenpeace Confronts Metro in Hamilton over Failure to Protect Seafoodt Seafood

Activists set up a banner inside the store reading “Don’t Buy, Don’t Sell Redlist Fish” and prevented the sale of Redlist species. Outside, more activists distributed information leaflets to customers and raised another banner reading “Metro: Selling Fish to Death.”

“Greenpeace is at Metro today to let consumers know that Canada’s supermarkets are major accomplices in ocean destruction,” said Beth Hunter, a Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner. “We want Metro to stop selling Redlist fish and begin implementing policies that promote the sale sustainable seafood.”

Today is day five 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, seven Greenpeace activists have been arrested. Successful activities have been conducted at stores in Victoria, Kelowna and Nelson, B.C.; North Bay, Peterborough and Kingston, Ontario; and Trois-Rivières, Victoriaville and Rimouski in Quebec.

The confrontation campaign 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 Metro chain received the lowest ranking because it has no plan to develop a sustainable seafood policy.

“Metro is last in the Greenpeace ranking because it refuses to take action to protect our fish stocks from commercial extinction,” said Hunter. “We want their customers to help us stop Metro 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 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, swordfish, skates and rays, tropical shrimp and prawns, and tuna. More information on the Redlist species is in the report.

For more information, please contact:
Alex Paterson, Media & Public Relations Officer, (416) 524-8496 (on location in Hamilton)
Beth Hunter, Oceans Campaigner, (514) 569-8391(on location in Hamilton)