February 6, 2013 — Fast food giant McDonald’s is not ruling out a return to using Russian pollock raw material, as it embarks on a major fanfare about its use of eco-labeled Alaska pollock.
In late January, McDonald’s announced it is to use the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) logo on its Filet-o-Fish sandwiches and Fish McBites, a new product. At the moment, McDonald’s uses Alaskan deepskin pollock as its primary raw material in the US.
This has caused speculation in the pollock business that McDonald’s, far from being entirely driven by green credentials, is setting up for a return to using Russian pollock, with the Sea of Okhotsk portion of the fishery close to being MSC-certified.
In a statement sent to Undercurrent News, McDonald’s did not rule this out.
“Our future use of Russian pollock depends on the outcome of the MSC certification process and future guidance from Sustainable Fisheries Partnership,” said a spokeswoman for McDonald’s.
She added that the use of the label is not a short-term thing.
McDonald’s is “proud to recognize this work by displaying the blue MSC eco-label on our packaging and in our marketing materials”, she said.
The chain has “no immediate plans to stop featuring the eco-label on our packaging”, she added.
McDonald’s sources its fish based on a standard which Jim Cannon, CEO of Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), helped it to develop while he was at Conservation International.
“The majority of our partners use SFP’s standard evaluations, but several of our partners have their own standards, which emphasize different issues or risks they are concerned about,” Cannon said.
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