April 26, 2012 – The decision by Whole Foods Market to stop selling seafood that it considers unsustainable has prompted a protest from Sen. Scott Brown and seafood industry members who say the policy is misguided and will only heap further woe on struggling New England fishermen.
In a Monday letter addressed to John Mackey and Walter Robb, joint CEOs at Whole Foods, Brown blasted the move, saying it "has more to do with political correctness than with sound reasoning." Brown said he was troubled that the decision does not consider the impact on fishermen and their families and has urged the retail giant to reconsider.
The Austin-based company announced that beginning last Sunday (Earth Day) it would no longer carry "red-rated" seafood. The move was billed as a way to reverse overfishing, and among the fish the chain stopped carrying is cod caught by fishing trawlers.
Whole Foods cited the environmental group Blue Ocean Institute and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California as the source of the rating system.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium uses green, yellow and red ratings to advise consumers on their seafood purchases. Its website advises buyers to avoid cod caught by trawl gear in U.S. and Canadian waters, suggesting cod taken by hooks or trawled cod from Iceland or the Arctic as better alternatives.
Damage to marine habitat caused by "dragging large nets across the sea floor" is the reason cited.
This is a red herring, according to Laura Foley Ramsden, co-owner with husband Peter Ramsden of Foley Fish in New Bedford, a third-generation family fish-processing business. "These are environmental groups, with an agenda, that are 3,000 miles away from us," said Foley Ramsden, who also sits on the New England Fishery Management Council. Claims that trawl gear destroys habitat in these waters are off the mark, she said, since the sea bottom on Georges Bank is predominantly sand and gravel. "They are ignoring a 10-year study done by SMAST," she said. "It's not like fishermen are destroying coral out there."
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times.
Read the letter Senator Brown sent to the joint CEOs at Whole Foods