Canned Tuna - Seafood Choices Alliance

Canned Tuna: Our Approach
& Some Thoughts.

Reading
London

Organico/Fish4Ever
6 Employees
£2million turnover
100% organic/sustainable
Customers: independents,
on-line, some supermarkets
and some export
Fish4Ever – 10 years in May
London
Reading

Our Product Range
Fish4Ever – 19 lines, 5 planned, 3 tunas:
albacore/white, yellowfin + skipjack.

Ethical/Sustainable
Products: 100% organic or sustainable - “Slow Food”
principles – good, clean, fair.
Product suppliers are mostly SME’s + co-op’s.
Service suppliers are ethical champions.

MSC Commitment
% of lines certified
2008
29% 71%
2009
52% 48%
2010
73% 27%
Based on existing MSC lines and fisheries already certified where we are waiting for
packaging as well as fisheries in process of certification.

MSC Range

Endorsements & Mentions
Antony Worrall Thompson
Hugh Fearnley Wittington
Charles Clover
Craig Sams
Highly trusted ethical publications...

Shows,
etc.

Trade Newsletter

… and a
Video.
Shot on location in the Maldives and Islington.

Sustainability: Our Approach

Land
Sea People

Organic Agriculture.
Better for Climate Change (but complicated).
General eco-benefits (peak oil + phosphates,
water retention, soil health).
Bio-diversity: species, eco-system, resilience.
No toxic chemicals – on land or in production.
High animal welfare standards.
Nitrate leaching – run-off from use of fertilisers
and intensive animal rearing.

A n “IPCC for agriculture” which involved 400 academic/scientific authors
in 52 countries sees organic as a best practise expression of agricultural
knowledge, science and technology for a sustainable development to deal
with the future social, health and food supply issues.
www.aggassesment.org

Focus on Nitrate Leaching
Up to 400 “dead areas” in coastal waters of the
sea as a result of excessive leaching of
phosphates and nitrates from fertilisers used in
intensive farming....
Diaz and Rosenberg in Science August 2008
“Over 30% of UK estuaries and 15% of coastal
waters are at risk from nutrients, pesticides, organic
pollutants and heavy metals”
Silent Seas 2008 – Marine Conservation Society

Map of “Dead Seas”
Black spots indicate dead sea areas
Diaz and Rosenberg in Science August 2008

Land Sea People

Main Sustainability Problems
Overfishing
Overcapacity, too much fishing, catch improvement,
poor management or enforcement.
Damaging Methods
Endangered species (extinction), habitat/food-chain
damage, by-catch/discard other fish + juveniles.
Illegal Fishing
Effect on management/stock levels.

Basic Tuna Market Info
5 Commercial Species
4 mil tons – skipjack, yellowfin, big-eye, albacore,
bluefin. 5 RTA/RFMA.
UK Canned Fish
Circa 1/3 rd of total liveweight consumption; 50%
is tuna, of which 95%+ is skipjack; c 90%
Princes, John West, supermarket own label.
UK Consumers
Broad + deep coverage (age, wealth), cheap,
mostly used as sandwich filling.

Our Original Tuna Research.
Tuna in Trouble/Fortuna
Seafood Watch Reports on
individual tuna species
“Tuna Resources” deLeina
Moreno & Majkowski
ICCAT and other RTA papers
- statistics, science, reports.

Overfishing...
What we can do:-
1. Try to choose better management options.
2. Support NGO’s recommendations and MSC.
3. Engage the consumer and retailers.
4. Prefer artisan/local fishing.
What we can’t do:-
1. Be the “expert opinion” on different stock levels.
2. Swap and change.

Source: FAO
Table of High Sea Management Bodies

Damaging Methods...
What we can do:-
1. Choose the most selective options.
2. No long lines, no purse-seiners on FAD’s (or on
dolphins), no gillnets, no driftnets.
3. Avoid juvenile and spawning areas, especially if
other concerns (illegal fishing/management).

From WWF: “Tuna in Trouble”

Illegal Fishing...
What we can do:-
1. Avoid areas known to be high risk.
2. Request/notify our suppliers to monitor illegal
boat lists – FAO, Greenpeace...
What we can’t do:-
1. Know what’s going on better than the
scientists or managers on site.

Land
Sea People

Our “People” Principles
that the resource is the inheritance of the coastal
communities that have traditionally or historically
fished it.
that trade is “fair” and workers’ rights respected,
that employment, health and safety, food quality
and environmental regulations are observed - both
at the level of the fishing itself and the processing.
that local fishing and local production (especially in
North-South trade) is preferred.

Fish: A Huge Export Commodity
developing world
Source: FAO State of World Fisheries 2007

Trade Flows/Exports to Europe
The waters of Africa supply some 25% of total fish
(by volumes) consumed in Europe.
Source: FAO State of World Fisheries 2007 (bn. tons)

Fair Fish Quotes
Fortuna “Restoring the Balance” - WWF (2005)
“16 of 17 (EU Fisheries Partnership Agreements)… involve tuna.
Such distant water fishing often has devastating effects on coastal
fisheries vital to local communities.”
Pirate Fish on Your Plate - Earth Justice Foundation EJF (2007)
“Africa alone is now losing almost 1 billion US dollars a year to
illegal fishing activities. Pirate fishing operations are stealing an
invaluable protein source from some of the world’s poorest people
while damaging the livelihoods of legitimate local fishermen”
Taking Tuna Out of The Can - Greenpeace (2008)
“For equitable alternatives, purchasing tuna directly from the coastal
state operators is always preferred, as access agreements with foreign
fishing nations are by and large incredibly unfair to the developing
coastal states”

Artisan Fleet versus
Industrial Fleet
In this example from the Indian Ocean, the artisan fleet employs more
than 4x the number of boats and almost 3x the number of people to catch
approximately the same amount of fish.
Source: FAO State of World Fisheries 2007

Mapping Illegal Fishing in Africa
Source: Marine Resource Assessment Group (MRAG) (2005).

The Tuna Example: West Africa
yellowfin
The map on the left shows foreign purse-seiner catch in yellow, and
local baitboats (pole&line) in red, long lines in blue: ICCAT 2000/04.

...Also a Problem of Fish Size.
Seafood Watch: Yellowfin Tuna Seafood Report
According to figures quoted from
ICCAT: “the average size of yellowfin
caught ranges from 2.5 kg in Tema
(Ghana) to 30 kg around the Azores,
Canary Islands, and Cape Verde”
“The main spawning ground (of
yellowfin) is the equatorial zone of the
Gulf of Guinea (off the Coast of
Ghana), with spawning primarily
occurring from January to April.
Juveniles are generally found in
coastal waters off Africa”.
Source Monterey Bay Aquarium: Seafood Watch

….and for East Africa
skipjack
The map on the right comes from the IOTC and shows in light green
the purse-seiner catch for skipjack tuna from 2000 to 2006.

UK Skipjack Tuna Imports
More than 50% of UK imports are from East/West African waters
where high levels of illegal fishing have been recorded on top of
the general issue of “resource theft.”
Source: Globefish March 2008, the FAO Market Reports Website

Issues and Dilemmas

2009: The Year of Tuna...

Apparent Results
Wide support for a ban on bluefin fishing.
Transfer in UK of several major customers to
pole and line skipjack.
Formation of ISSF – (International Seafood
Sustainability Foundation).
Little improvement in media/public knowledge.
The “broader picture” is missing.

The Missing Dimension
as featured in the Greenpeace Video.
If people want us
to fish
sustainably, they
need to pay for it,
otherwise we
have no choice -
we will need to
fish like everyone
else.

Market Research People Say...
I prefer fish that is ethically sourced
and kinder to the environment (2008)
25% agree strongly and 35% agree.
Prove It Accountability
Environmental and ethical issues
retain the power to attract attention
and spend with nearly half of UK
adults (25 million) viewing them as
important or very important and in the
US 39% say they’d pay more for
environmentally friendly products.

...But the Truth is More Prosaic.
It’s about price and pleasure.
Vast majority of
consumers not ready to
pay more for ethical
values.
Consumption is
first of all a selfish
act.
Ethics/sustainability on the cheap.
The more common a product, the harder it is
to charge a premium on the market price.

Ricki Gervais as Zeitgeist
Stressed/Busy
Overwhelmed
Cynical /ironic
Un-believing/low trust
Atomised
Disconnected
Confused
Un-knowledged
Self
First

The Zeitgeist Dilemma
It’s your job
to do it for me
Consumer
“I will If You Will”
“It’s not
my problem”
“I don’t believe
or trust it”
“Why should I pay
More”
Marketing
“Make it simple”
- but it isn’t!
“Value for values”
- but you can’t.
Emotional message
- but we’re weary.
You won’t buy
if /when I do...
Retail
More a risk than
an opportunity
Ethics as an
optional
consumer choice

Our “Fair Fish” Tuna...
A simple idea: support the local boats and the
local packer and therefore the local community.
Make sustainability financially viable.
But most Maldives tuna is canned in Thailand
and the market price is impossibly cheap.

...In a Non-Fair Market Place
Thai-Maldives
Pole and line fishing
Local industry supported
Decent working conditions
Fair fish premium
Pole and line fishing
A real incentive to support
and even improve
sustainable approach
Premium only obtainable if
market is paying more but
approach is lowest cost
commodity-driven.

Where “sustainability” is now
for brands/products
A secondary “feel good” argument behind a
“real” consumer benefit.
A “competitive edge” argument but not the core.
An insurance policy against bad publicity.
Part of the advertising budget.
A dysfunctional add-on to the
business of making money.

… and where it needs to be.
Ethical –
social and green
values built into
the products
we buy as
consumers
Civic Society
Pressure for
Change
Government
to re-set the rules
and enforce them.
Market economics is not
“fit for purpose.”

Some Questions
Does “sustainability” need an official definition?
Internalising externalities: can we price-in
externalities - and if so which ones qualify?
Is POWER and/or SIZE an issue in sustainability?
Does the actual legal remit of companies need to
change?

if
“business as usual
is not an option”

- it must be done differently...