Fishing for improvement
What we’re doing to help.
Our participation with SFP gives us the opportunity to better understand important issues about seafood sustainability. We learn where to engage our sustainability efforts, how fisheries manage their stock, and about the health of a fishery. This partnership also empowers us to invest in fisheries to help them gain the resources they need to improve their sustainability practices, a process known as a fishery improvement project (FIP). Since 2011, we’ve donated over $920,000 to SFP.
By engaging our supply chain with nongovernmental organizations in fishery improvement projects, we’ve been able to bring the best our oceans have to offer to our stores and our shoppers, while ensuring this natural resource is protected for future generations.
Promoting better fishing practices.
Grouper, snapper, and swordfish in Indonesia:
We strive to improve the availability of accurate data on catches and bycatch from both artisan fisheries and larger vessels.
Grouper and snapper in the Gulf of America:
We support efforts to improve stock assessments, obtaining better bycatch and discard data.
Pink shrimp in the Gulf of America:
We participate in FIPs that aim to ensure fishermen correctly install bycatch reduction devices and turtle excluder devices to reduce the amount of bycatch caught in nets and allow turtles to escape the nets unharmed.
South American mahi-mahi:
We promote the development of evaluation tools to help estimate the status of the mahi-mahi population along the eastern Pacific Ocean. Additionally, we collaborated with SFP to purchase tracking tags to help research the sustainability of mahi-mahi in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Blue swimming crabs:
We support improvements that protect and foster the healthy growth of crab stocks.
Crab in Canada:
We are experimenting with on-demand gear (previously known as ropeless traps) that will enable snow crab fishing without endangering the North Atlantic right whales as they migrate.
Funding sustainable fishing equipment.
On-demand gear:
We worked with SFP to purchase on-demand gear to supply the NOAA trap library and help reduce the risk of entanglement of the North Atlantic right whale. This gear is made available free of charge to fishermen to test on their vessels with the goal of adopting the new technology.
Electronic monitoring:
We provided funding to equip three fishing boats within our supply chain with high-quality cameras and monitoring equipment. This technology is used to collect data on the effectiveness of bycatch mitigation practices already in place in the mahi-mahi, swordfish, and yellowfin tuna fisheries of Costa Rica and Panama. The equipment records when and where bycatch occurs, tracks migration patterns, and offers data on the species involved.