Trader Joe’s does label private label products as low sodium, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian and kosher to help customers make informed choices – but this trend stops short of reaching the seafood section. Trader Joe’s customers are given no information regarding environmentally responsible seafood, and the Trader Joe’s seafood section is stocked with a plethora of red list items, including orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, Atlantic salmon, and monkfish.
To make matters worse, Trader Joe’s actively disseminates misleading information about its seafood selection. In some stores, signs claiming that Trader Joe’s seafood comes from sustainable and environmentally benign sources hang above the seafood freezer, lulling customers into a false sense of security and willfully duping patrons into supporting parts of the seafood industry that cause tremendous harm to the planet.
Until Trader Joe’s develops and implements strong and defensible sustainable seafood policies and practices that demonstrate environmental and social responsibility, its seafood customers will be unwittingly abetting Trader Joe’s environmental crimes—There is no place for this kind of moral shortsightedness in a responsible seafood operation.
Labeling & Transparency: Trader Joe’s does not label seafood products so consumers can avoid purchasing destructively fished species, and does not promote sustainable seafood to customers. To make matters worse, certain stores advertise that Trader Joe’s seafood is sustainable (blatant misinformation when one considers the actual seafood being sold). Beyond seafood labeling required by law, Trader Joe’s only provides its customers with information on mercury in seafood.
Red List Seafood Sales: Greenpeace surveys found Trader Joe’s sells 15 of the 22 red list seafoods:
Alaskan pollock, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, monkfish, ocean quahog, orange roughy, red snapper, redfish, South Atlantic albacore tuna, swordfish, tropical shrimp and yellowfin tuna.
http://go.greenpeaceusa.org/seafood/scorecards/trader-joes.pdfhttp://traitorjoe.com/index.htm