Sustainable Seafood Policy
The Kroger Co.’s Sustainable Seafood Policy
As the nation’s largest traditional grocery retailer, Kroger recognizes we have an important role to play in responsible sourcing of seafood. Our goal is that our customers and their children can enjoy fresh, sustainable seafood for generations to come.
We believe being a responsible steward of the environment goes hand-in-hand with also offering our
customers a wide variety of high quality seafood choices.
There are many respected Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and others working to improve
the practices related to fishery management. These efforts focus on these goals: rebuilding stocks in
the natural environment, reducing environmental impacts, and supporting the marine ecosystem.
This is a dynamic area of sustainability and so we expect our practices and this policy to evolve and
change over time.
Our Standards
Illegal Seafood
As a basic practice, Kroger will never knowingly purchase illegally caught seafood. Kroger will not source from IUU (illegal, unregulated, or unreported) fisheries. We will follow all federal and applicable international laws regarding procurement, labeling and traceability.
Wild-Caught Standards
Today Kroger maintains information on our top 20 wild-caught fresh and frozen species that includes country of origin, method of production, method of catch, type of gear, and source location and country. This encompasses more than 90% of the wild-caught fresh and frozen fish sold in our stores.
In 2009, Kroger began a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund. This partnership and the resulting assessment work help us make determinations about which source fisheries are already sustainable. At Kroger, our goal is to source 100% of our top 20 wild-caught species from fisheries that are MSC certified, in MSC full assessment, or engaged in a WWF fishery improvement project by the year 2015. Today, 65% of our top 20 wildcaught fresh and frozen species is either MSC certified or in MSC full assessment. Kroger has set forth the goal to source 75% of the top 20 species by volume from MSC certified fisheries by 2015. At present, we are sourcing approximately 50% of our top 20 species by volume from MSC certified fisheries. Kroger will continue to work with fisheries that exhibit areas of opportunity and will encourage them to improve and seek MSC certification. In some cases Kroger will discontinue source fisheries or species where efforts to improve have been unsuccessful.
We make our sourcing decisions using science based data, consultation with our NGO partners and the government, and customer preferences. Kroger will no longer carry shark, bluefin tuna, marlin, skates, or rays in any of its retail locations due to the increasing sustainability concerns surrounding these species.
Farmed or Aquaculture Standards
We have completed our initial assessment with the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program. BAP standards are industry accepted guidelines for farmed raised seafood. Based on the assessment, we informed our suppliers in 2009 of new expectations with regard to farmed seafood:
--- For farmed species that are corporately procured and have existing BAP standards in place, we expect all suppliers to reach Level 2 certification by the end of 2011.
--- The level of BAP certification will now be a key factor in our seafood procurement decisions. This is an important message from one of the largest seafood retailers in the U.S. and we believe that it will have an immediate and meaningful impact in the industry.
--- Because not all aquaculture species have BAP or other globally accepted standards in place, we are continuing to urge both the Global Aquaculture Alliance (which creates the BAP standards), the World Wildlife Fund, and other organizations to work together to add additional species to certification programs.
Kroger is also committed to participating in the Aquaculture Dialogues, a set of eight multistakeholder
roundtables working to create global standards that will help minimize the key negative impacts associated with aquaculture. Kroger also will consider sourcing farmed seafood from producers certified against the final Dialogue standards.
Communication with Customers
Kroger customers receive important information about the products they buy from us. We follow all laws related to seafood Country of Origin and Method of Production labeling, and we voluntarily post
information about mercury in all of our seafood departments.
We believe we have an opportunity to inform our customers about seafood sustainability and promote
sustainable seafood. Because we value transparency, we will continue to find ways to best communicate our efforts with customers regarding this topic and about the actions Kroger is taking to
improve seafood sustainability.
We welcome customer feedback. Customers can contact us through Kroger.com or by calling 1-800-
KROGERS.
Updated: October 2011