Bigger fish to fry

Can fish from sustainable sources make the leap, from niche market to the commercial mainstream? Sainsbury’s is helping test the water for tuna, as Roger East finds out.

Already on the menu for the discerning consumer, an ever-widening range of fish varieties can be found that sport the certificate of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). As the logo confirms, they are ‘sourced from sustainably-managed fisheries’. Which most fish, as we’re becoming all too well aware, are not. Soon that balance must really begin to shift. But how? One positive initiative is a current three-year project, in which Sainsbury’s has joined forces with the MSC, to investigate the management of tuna fisheries around the world.

As the UK’s largest fresh fish retailer – with a fifth of this £912 million market – Sainsbury’s is a vital player. Indeed, as MSC chief executive Brendan May has said, “the battle for sustainable fisheries can only be won if retailers like Sainsbury’s demonstrate real vision and leadership”. The company was an early supporter of the MSC and the first UK supermarket to stock fish bearing its certification. Taking speciality products like Thames herring and Cornish mackerel when in season, as well as Alaska salmon since last summer and several others including hoki (which it also sells as breaded fillets), Sainsbury’s has seen its turnover in MSC-certified fish increase by 25% in the last year.

Although that still makes it not much more than a drop in the ocean alongside the mainstream fish varieties most familiar to the British consumer, achieving something with tuna would start to make a big difference. Tuna represents 4% of Sainsbury’s fresh fish turnover – and rising.

The company’s fresh fish buyer Steve Saunders is “absolutely enthusiastic”. He firmly believes that “it’s going to be the future” – while remaining keenly aware of the importance of answering the question “if we go down the MSC route, how can we keep the product competitive?” It’s only a partial answer, but the company’s current customer profiles do indicate a high proportion of ‘foodies’ among those whom it expects to vote with their wallets. In the medium- to long-term perspective, taking a 2010 timescale for acheiving sustainability across the range of its fish sales, there would be a host of issues to tackle throughout the supply chain, reaching back to such questions as the source of the feed used for farmed fish, changing customer preferences, and some little-known breeding patterns in the wild.

It can’t be guaranteed, of course, that even the current project will deliver the result that Sainsbury’s would like to see – a secure and sufficient source of certified tuna at a competitive price. At best that’s a couple of years off yet, and subject to the findings of research which still needs better data on such fundamental issues as migration patterns. At this early stage, however, says Saunders, “we do believe there are some fisheries that have the potential”.

What the company is funding is the work of a dedicated research officer, based in Sydney, focusing on the main commercially-exploited varieties (yellowfin and skipjack tuna) in the Pacific region. It’s a unique and innovative collaboration with the MSC, and so far the potential suppliers are proving positive in their responses.

From a commercial perspective, Sainsbury’s would like to be first to market with MSC-certified tuna. Indeed, tying up some exclusive supply deals would have an obvious attraction, since there are clearly not enough sustainably sourced fish to go around; finding such fish actually for sale is often not as easy as it sounds, even for the dedicated would-be consumer.

But ultimately this is a project with something to tell us, in the broadest terms, about what we will be eating in a still uncertain future. As George White, sustainability manager for Sainsbury’s, sums it up: “If you can do this for tuna, with all the complexities and the difficulties, then you can do it for anything.”

Roger East is a freelance writer specialising in environmental and sustainability issues, and the Briefings editor of Green Futures.

30 October 2002

Roger East