A new Greenpeace report shows that Canada’s major supermarket chains are failing to provide Canadians with seafood that is sustainably caught and farmed.

The report, Out of Stock, Out of Excuses: Ranking retailers on seafood sustainability shows that some retailers have made progress on providing sustainable seafood while others are ignoring the problem. More must be doneto protect the world’s oceans and fish stocks.

The report ranks the major chains on seven criteria, including: the quality of their seafood policies, the level of information they provide on how and where the seafood they sell is caught or farmed, and the number of Redlist species they sell. Greenpeace released the report in Montreal at a news conference today.

“Our analysis shows that major supermarket chains are still part of the problem of destroying our oceans and destroying seafood,” said Beth Hunter, Greenpeace oceans campaign coordinator. “Some chains have taken steps in the right direction, but all need to take bigger strides to ensure there will be fish in the future. Supermarkets are selling out our oceans and selling themselves out of stock.”

Greenpeace’s report gives the chains the following grades (out of 10): Loblaw 2.4; Sobeys 1.1; Walmart 1.0; Overwaitea 0.9; Federated Co-Operatives 0.9; Costco 0.7; Safeway 0.3; and Metro 0.1…

“Metro and several other supermarkets seem to find it acceptable to sell seafood that is overexploited, illegally fished or destructively farmed,” said Sarah King, Greenpeace oceans campaigner. They are making no effort to protect the oceans. There is an urgent need for all supermarkets to heed the message of our campaign: Don’t buy, don’t sell Redlist fish.”

Source: CNW Group

Here is a good idea from the U.K. that promotes local food production and local commerce. I love how the members try to “stay out of the supermarkets.”

Via: The Guardian

It’s a bizarre sight: rows of polished church pews, each dotted with neat piles of fruit or veg. Shoppers scoop heaps into baskets, trolleys, or crumpled plastic bags saved from previous trips to Tesco.

This is a weekly food shop, cooperative style – a model of food distribution where neighbours work together to take control of their local supply chain. The system is simple: find a supplier, buy in bulk and collectively cover the costs. Smaller co-ops will only buy what participants have ordered, whereas larger organisations operate as markets or even set up their own shops. Some of these “community” co-ops invite customers to become members. You pay a nominal fee to be able to shop from it, or have a say in how it is run. Others are more informal and open to all. There are also “workers’” co-ops, which are often much larger organisations, where paid employees share all key business decisions.

The concept, of course, is far from new, but it’s proving increasingly popular. “Interest is definitely growing,” says John Atherton of Co-operatives UK, an organisation that supports cooperative enterprise across Britain. “We’re seeing rising numbers of buying groups and community shops. It’s a trend that is set to continue.”

The motivations are many: fears about food security; food inflation; the power of supermarkets; the bruised image of capitalism; a lost sense of community.

Across Britain, food co-ops are sprouting up in school halls, community centres, farm sheds or even your neighbour’s front room – anywhere, in fact, where rent is free.

“I use the term ‘trust trading’,” says Dan Dempsey, manager of a project establishing food co-ops in Wales. In essence, he says, it’s about a return to traditional routes of trade: reconnecting farmers with communities, and countryside to cities; paying a fair price and avoid markups by middlemen.

With strong backing from the Welsh assembly, his team has helped to launch 180 food co-ops in the last three years, supplying 6,000 families and turning over around £1m. “We’re cracking the system,” he says. “Supermarkets don’t have to dominate.”

It was this notion of trust that inspired the Rochdale Pioneers, established in 1844 and widely regarded as the first successful food co-op. At the time, food adulteration was commonplace. Unscrupulous traders were known to whiten flour with alum (plaster of paris) and dry used tea leaves before reselling them. Not much has changed: from the current scare over pork contaminated with dioxins, to the melamine-in-baby-milk scandal in China, the parallels could not be more striking.