In the Warehouse
As a consumer, you want to make an informed decision about your purchases. But, when it comes to seafood, you’re often shopping blind because some supermarkets fail to label their packages. Costco doesn’t sufficiently label seafood products. As a result, customers can’t avoid purchasing destructively fished species. Costco has to stop hiding behind their massive warehouse and start implementing labeling practices so their customers will know exactly what they’re buying.
Seeing red in bulk
Costco must also stop selling red list seafood beginning immediately with orange roughy and Chilean sea bass. These fish species need special protection — both species are long-lived and slow growing, and reproduce late in life. This makes them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Orange roughy is caught in bottom trawls, which have horrific impacts on the seabed and the animals living there. Chilean sea bass, also known as Antarctic or Patagonian toothfish, is often unregulated, unreported, and illegally caught — pirate fishing at its worst.
Greenpeace surveys found that Costco continues to sell fifteen of the twenty-two red list seafood: Alaskan pollock, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean sea bass, grouper, monkfish, ocean quahog, orange roughy, red snapper, redfish, South Atlantic albacore tuna, swordfish, tropical shrimp, and yellowfin tuna.
