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What the Sustainable Seafood Label Can't See · How To Protect The Ocean

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  You bought the fish with the green check mark.
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  Now, investigators check the supply chains behind hundreds of seafood
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  companies making the claims like that, like that they are being sustainable.
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  That's what they wanna hear.
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  More than half had a documented problem somewhere upstream.
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  That's the problem.
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  That's the problem that we're seeing, Now, we've talked about three days
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  following the feed, we've talked about what the farm fish are eating.
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  We're talking about how the fish meal is taking away fish from specific coastal
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  areas like, in countries in West Africa.
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  And yesterday we talked about, how that fish is being moved around, how all the
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  boats and all the things that go on on the boats, how it's actually being caught.
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  Now, today we're gonna focus on the label on the package and what
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  you can do to make sure that you are eating sustainable seafood.
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  I think that's, like, the biggest thing right now when you buy certified seafood,
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  Cause you did the responsible thing, You used the tools that you had, and
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  you wanna say, like, clearly, " I wanna make sure that this is sustainable."
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  But the question today is what those labels cover and where they stop.
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  Not that they mean to not cover certain things, but there are certain things
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  that we are discovering each and every day where we're like, "Oh, yeah, that
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  doesn't actually work right now because of whatever we've discovered this week
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  on 'The Outlaw Ocean Project.'" Now, I've recommended seafood labels and
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  guides for years, and I still do, I wanna make sure you're using them with
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  your eyes open, though, and that's what today's all about, and so I want
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  you guys to kind of understand that.
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  Now, investigators have looked at more than 559 seafood companies
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  making strong sustainability claims.
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  More than half had a documented crime or concern somewhere in their supply chains.
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  Now, they may not have known about it.
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  It may have been hidden from them, but now with this Outlaw Ocean Project
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  investigation that's coming to light, we now know where the problems are.
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  At least 80 fish meal plants and boats they investigated
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  held Marine Trust certification.
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  So it's, like, a specific certification that is supposed
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  to be, like, sustainability.
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  Virtually all of them had crimes or concerns linked to their supply chains.
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  Now, since 2020, at least nine US false advertising lawsuits have targeted
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  seafood sustainability companies with more than $2 million in settlements.
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  Now let's look at what this supply chain looks like.
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  You go from the boat, the fish meal plant, the feed mill, fish
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  farm, processor, importer, and then the store, and then you.
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  Most of the audits in these programs focus on the farm, sometimes the processor, but
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  spot checks are often announced ahead of time, so it's not really a spot check,
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  and it's not really, like, a surprise.
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  So auditors rarely interview crews at sea in their own language with the
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  captain out of earshot, because if the captain's there and they're being
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  held against their will or there's some kind of fishery slave stuff going
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  on and the captain's, like, right there, they're not gonna say anything.
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  They're just gonna be like, "Yeah, this is what happens."
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  Even though they can probably be rescued and probably be helped.
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  they're scared.
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  They don't have their passport, they don't have access to their families,
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  they've been abused emotionally, mentally, physically, and they could die.
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  So they're not gonna share any kind of information with authorities if they're
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  near any kind of authority on the boat, like a captain or something like that.
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  let's talk about what this, like, gap in the supply chain is really about.
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  Western Sahara is a territory on the Atlantic coast of North Africa, so
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  Morocco has controlled most of it since 1970s, and European courts have ruled
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  more than once that it's legally separate from Morocco, and that trade deals with
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  Morocco don't cover it without consent of the Sahrawi people who live there.
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  Now Western Sahara has at least 14 fish meal plants, and according to The Outlaw
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  Ocean Project, their owners often label the product as Moroccan before it ships.
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  They kinda hide it.
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  So one of those plants, run by a company called Delta Ocean in the city
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  of Laâyoune, supplies fish meal to a Turkish company called Kilyos Deniz.
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  I don't know if I'm pronouncing that properly, makes fish
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  feed and runs sea bass farms.
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  Those farms have held Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification
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  since 2019, and according to the report by DeSmog, they supply three of
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  Britain's biggest supermarket chains.
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  Now, when reporters from The Outlaw Ocean Project asked, one of those supermarkets,
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  Sainsbury's, said its supplier had given written assurances that its sea bass
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  feed didn't come from the company's name, so, like, Delta Ocean and Kilyos Deniz,
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  and those companies did not respond for comments by the Outlaw Ocean Project.
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  So the farm can meet the standard while the feed's origins, rest
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  on paperwork, That's pretty much the gap that we're seeing here.
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  And Seafood Watch says openly that its ratings cover environmental impact
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  and that the labor risk sits in a separate tool built for businesses.
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  So Marine Trust says it's a standard setter whose rules are grounded in
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  science, but critics point out that it's governed largely by members of the
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  fishmeal industry's own trade group.
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  Bit of a conflict of interest, especially if they're not transparent.
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  Both things can be true.
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  Like, you can still have, a certification.
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  You still think everything's going well, but there's still a gap.
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  Now remember Gunjur in The Gambia that I talked about a couple of episodes ago?
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  Remember it was that lagoon, that turned red in 2017 and again in 2025?
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  The plant next to it is called Golden Lead.
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  According to trade records compiled by the Outlaw Ocean Project, Golden Lead
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  sent at least 10 shipments of fish meal between 2022 and 2023 to a shrimp
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  feed mill in Vietnam called Grobest.
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  That mill holds a certification from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.
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  Now, Grobest sells shrimp feed to hatcheries and farms in Vietnam.
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  Those farms supply some of the country's biggest shrimp exporters,
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  including one called Minh Phu.
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  And Minh Phu has shipped shrimp to Canadian importers whose
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  brands sit in the freezer aisles at Sobeys and Walmart Canada.
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  None of those companies responded to the investigators' questions,
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  which is kind of interesting.
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  The records show a link between these companies.
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  They don't prove any particular bag of shrimp contains fish meal
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  from that plant, and nothing suggests that the grocers knew.
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  That's exactly the point though, of all this, Nobody in the chain
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  has asked to look all the way back.
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  Now the chain is public, so everyone can ask, and that's important.
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  Now Tuesday, we looked at farm fish that eat wild fish.
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  Wednesday, those fish were somebody's dinner.
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  And Thursday, the boats are pretty hard to see that catch this fish meal.
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  Now today, the label can't see them either, but you can.
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  In October 2023, a multi-year investigation reported by The New Yorker
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  and The Outlaw Ocean Project documented that Uighur workers had been moved
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  from western China to work in a seafood processing plants on China's east coast
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  under a government labor transfer program.
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  Now, seafood from some of those plants were reaching buyers
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  in North America and Europe.
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  So the investigators published trade records showing which
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  companies were connected.
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  Within a day, Highliner Foods, Canada's biggest seafood companies, announced it
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  had cut ties with the suppliers named.
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  The US groceries chain, Albertsons, had already pulled the affected
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  products from their shelves.
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  Lund's Fisheries in New Jersey had cut ties as well.
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  And the following year, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council
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  closed its office in China.
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  Once the buyers could see the chain, it moved in a day.
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  So once you can see that supply chain, you can act.
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  And those companies acted, like I gotta give credit to the companies,
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  they acted fast once they had evidence, And that's the whole lesson.
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  Visibility changes the behavior.
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  So the call to action for you today is find your grocery store chain's annual
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  forced labor supply chain report.
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  In Canada, search the chain's name plus the S2011 report.
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  Since 2024, the law requires large companies to publish
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  one every year by May 1st.
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  In the UK, look for the company's modern slavery statement.
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  Check whether it mentions seafood and especially seafood feed.
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  If it doesn't, send the store one line asking, "Why are you not doing
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  this?" In the US, ask customer service whether the store's seafood
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  supply policy covers fish feed.
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  These are all CTAs that are really easy to do, These are all
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  calls to action that you can do.
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  It doesn't take much.
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  All you have to do is send one email.
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  It's really not that difficult.
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  And the more of you that send those emails, the more answers we get, the
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  more that these companies realize that people are looking out for this
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  kind of stuff, and we don't wanna have seafood, whether it's farmed or whether
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  it's wild, that are not sustainable and that are using forced labor, or
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  they're using bad practices in fish feed plants, we need to make sure that
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  we know every aspect, and transparency is the key, just like in science.
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  So look, we talked four episodes on the food that feeds our fish, Some farmed
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  seafood takes from the wild ocean, and some, like mussels and oysters, it
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  gives it back because it filter feeds.
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  Those wild fish feed real people, like the ones that are caught for the fish meal.
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  And the communities like Abeny are fighting for them and winning.
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  Like, that's the thing, it's changing.
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  But the fight still needs to happen, not only in Africa, but also in
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  Canada, in the US, in the UK, in Australia, wherever there's farmed
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  fish and wherever that's sold.
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  The boats are getting easier to see every single year, and the label
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  is one tool that we can use to make sure that this is sustainable.
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  And your questions are another tool.
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  Ask those questions to those companies.
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  Put their feet to the fire to make sure that they understand that, "Look,
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  yeah, I wanna buy from you, but I wanna make sure you're doing this properly."
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  And think about, like, this a compliance manager at a grocery store, the head
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  office reading an email from a customer.
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  "Does your seafood policy cover fish feed?" Then a second email,
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  and then 100, Next year's report, it'll have a new paragraph.
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  Trust me, it'll happen.
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  In 2023, it took the companies one day to act once they could see.
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  Help them see.
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  Help them understand.
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  That's it for this week's episodes, and today's episode, of course.
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  we did all about Fish Feed.
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  I wanna thank, Maya Martin from the Outlaw Ocean Project for coming on
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  the show on Monday, helping us with all this stuff, and then being able
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  to research it on their websites.
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  I'll put the links to the websites, that they, provided.
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  So much information, a five-year-long investigative report, that really
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  revealed a lot, a lot of scary stuff, but a lot of stuff that needed to
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  happen to get out into the open so that we can see what was happening.
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  and I think that's important.
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  and I'm glad that we were able to do it.
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  I'm glad I was able to present it to you.
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  Obviously, not glad, that's happening, but it's something that we can work to stop.
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  And I wanna thank you so much for listening, and I'd
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  love to hear your comments.
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  This is the start of a conversation.
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  I'd love for you to continue and have that conversation with me.
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  And I wanna thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, to
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  this episode, this week's episodes, and of course, the podcast in general.
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  Don't forget to hit that follow button to make sure that you are following along
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  and you don't miss each and every episode.
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  Next week, we're gonna be talking about MPAs and marine protected areas and
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  education and why it's so important, with an MPA expert and an education expert.
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  And she's amazing.
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  you're gonna be able to meet her, Judy Mann Lang, and she's awesome, and I
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  can't wait for you to hear from her.
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  And so I thank ya.
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  So just don't forget to follow the podcast.
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  And thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.