Whole Foods on track to stop selling red-rated seafood

AUSTIN, Texas -- Whole Foods Market announced that it is on track to stop selling all red-rated swordfish and tuna at its seafood counters nationwide by this Earth Day, April 22.

Last September, Whole Foods Market announced this deadline for sourcing swordfish and tuna more sustainably as part of a larger initiative to move toward fully-sustainable seafood departments. The latest addition to Whole Foods Market's seafood sustainability initiative provides shoppers with transparent information about the sustainability status of non-MSC certified, wild-caught seafood and features color-coded, science-based sustainability ratings for wild-caught seafood created by partners Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium.

"The sustainability status information has opened a terrific dialogue at the seafood counter. Shoppers are flexing their buying power to prompt change and help reverse trends of overfishing, exploitation and depletion in so many fisheries," said David Pilat, Whole Foods Market global seafood coordinator. "Whole Foods Market is proud of our partnerships with Blue Ocean Institute, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and with our shoppers, buyers, fishermen and fishery managers. We are thrilled to have found fisheries that can provide better environmental choices to support the ecological health of our oceans and the abundance of marine life for generations to come."

Remaining red-rated wild-caught seafood will be phased out of Whole Foods Market stores by Earth Day 2012 with the exception of Atlantic cod and sole, which will have an extension until Earth Day 2013.