Whole Foods Market, a leading green supermarket chain with a major buying presence on the Gloucester waterfront, has announced a commitment to stop selling seafood that does not carry the seal of approval by one of two rating services that are enemies of trawling — the primary fishing method of the New England fleet.
The publicly traded company announced an "in-store color coded sustainability rating system" in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Ocean Institute, with a commitment to stop selling "red rated species by Earth Day 2013."
The Whole Foods' deadline for ending its commerce in seafoods burdened with the "red "label is more than two years off — Earth Day is in April. But based on current ratings of the two services, Whole Foods would no longer carry fresh cod, monkfish, hake and most haddock — the basis of the groundfishing industry, which is gasping for survival under unprecedented government catch limits, and hemorrhaging jobs.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.