Dec 29
Sustainable Seafood - It’s time has come
Catch of the day: Sustainable fish
Ten years ago, Henry and Lisa Lovejoy stood ankle-deep amid dead tuna in a Tokyo warehouse the size of a football field.
The tuna were headed to the dinner tables of Japan, and the warehouses would fill with fresh kill the next day. And the next. And the next. Some tuna were so young, they hadn't reproduced.
It was then that the couple, who ran a $20 million-a-year lobster export business in Boston, knew they had to stop doing what they were doing. "We thought, 'This industry has some serious environmental baggage,' " says Henry, 43. "We had a strong level of discomfort being part of an industry that wasn't managing its resources well."
Out of that sentiment came EcoFish, an 8-year-old company considered a pioneer in the market of "sustainable" seafood — a movement increasingly embraced by major seafood producers and retailers, including Wal-Mart. (WMT)
EcoFish sells only seafood that is grown or caught in eco-friendly ways. That means the fish producers don't harm the environment and take no more fish out of the ocean than are born each year.
EcoFish, with $3 million in annual sales, is a small fish in the $52 billion U.S. seafood industry. But it's living proof that seafood companies can make money without harming the environment, says Michael Sutton, director of the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He sees EcoFish as a company that can pioneer an industry transformation.
"They're a drop in the ocean that creates a lot of ripples," says Sutton, who serves on EcoFish's volunteer advisory board.
