Sainsbury's Begins Selling Sustainably Farmed Fish

UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s is now selling farmed fish certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in what is apparently an industry first, according to The Grocer.

By Jennifer Elks | Published 11 years ago | About a 1 minute read

UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s is now selling farmed fish certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in what is apparently an industry first, according to The Grocer.

The retailer has rolled out two private-label lines of pangasius, otherwise known as river cobbler — natural and smoked — across 150 of its stores. The store plans to add a third, lightly dusted line and increase distribution to 400 stores beginning May 1.

The ASC was founded in 2010 by WWF and IDH (Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative) to manage the global standards for responsible aquaculture, which are developed by the Aquaculture Dialogues, a program of roundtables initiated and coordinated by WWF.

The pangasius is ASC-certified from feed mill to final product and is a step towards the supermarket’s goal of having all of its fish independently certified as sustainable by 2020, as part of its 20x20 Sustainability Plan. Sainsbury’s also encourages customers to try alternative fish varieties in an effort to decrease depletion of popular fish stocks.

In other recent news, Sainsbury’s, along with Nestle and the Co-operative, announced last month it will begin pilot projects called “pathfinders” to decrease the supply chain footprint of products with the most GHG emissions, product waste, and water, energy and resource use.