Powered By Blogger

Friday 15 April 2011

Morrisons Hooked Into Sustainable Tuna


By Ben Aulakh

The UK’s fourth biggest supermarket Morrisons have finally been hooked into only selling sustainably sourced tuna from 2013.

The chain, which has a 12 per cent share of the British food market, has lined up behind Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose in making the commitment.

The new policy means that only tuna caught by pole and line will be sold by the chain, which will no longer sell fish, caught using Fish Aggregation Devices and indiscriminate Purse Seine Nets.

These FAD’ s are anchored objects used to attract tuna, which are then caught in massive purse seine nets.

They have been heavily criticised for attracting sharks, turtles and even dolphins, which are often caught up in the nets and killed.

However Line-Caught fish are taken one at a time by fisherman, each of whom have a line, attached to which is a form of squid-bait or a lure.

Due to the relatively smaller number of lines dragged behind fishing boats, fishermen can only catch the tuna one at a time, which automatically restricts harvest rates and helps preserve stocks, as well as posing no danger to larger marine animals.

The northern food retailer has also become the first to sell line caught Cornish Tuna, which it says can be traced back to just two boats, the Nova Spero and Charisma, which catch the fish in the North Atlantic.

Matthew Bailey, Fish Buyer at Morrisons said, “We know the men who catch these fish, where and how they catch them and even the names of the boats they fish from, this is traceability, quality and freshness at its best.”

“The Cornish tuna is a stunning fish and Morrisons is proud to be the first supermarket to support the Cornish tuna fishermen.

“Line-caught fishing is a sustainable and dolphin friendly method and the quality of this wild Tuna has to be tasted!”

The move by Morrisons comes just a month after ASDA and food-giant Princes made a similar commitment.


Photograph from www.morrisons.co.uk

No comments:

Post a Comment