According to the environmental group, Greenpeace New York-based Wegmans, with a store in Hunt Valley, dislodged Whole Foods for top honors in its ranking of national supermarket chains by the sustainability of their seafood operations. Whole Foods, which had been No. 1 in the last ranking in December, fell to third, while Ahold, the international food empire which owns the local Giant chain and Stop & Shop, retained 2nd place.
Greenpeace informed that they scores the supermarket chains on what, if any, policies they have on selling sustainable seafood, on how easy it is for consumers to tell where their seafood came from, and on how much of the seafood sold is on the environmental group’s “red list” of 22 species that are either overfished or unsustainably farmed through aquaculture.
Casson Trenor, Greenpeace’s senior markets campaigner, opined that Whole Foods has lost it stop position despite its ‘green’ image because it sells 18 of the 22 “red list” species. He added that if Whole Foods doesn’t get religion soon it may be overtaken by none other than Target, which is in fourth place. Greenpeace revealed that in the third ranking since last June 11 of the supermarket chains have made efforts to improve the sustainability of their seafood.
