Sustainable seafood: good for the environment and your business

With seafood, environmental sustainability and business success can go hand in hand. Retailing seafood products that are caught or raised in an environmentally sensitive manner not only benefits the health of the oceans, but it can also provide many opportunities to improve the growth and sustainability of seafood businesses.

As many people in the seafood business know first hand, the oceans are not in good shape. According to the United Nations, over 70% of world fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished and catches are declining. About 44 billion pounds of fish each year are wasted as unwanted “bycatch,” and hundreds of thousands of seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles, and other marine life are also killed through destructive fishing practices. But for business, the fisheries crisis is also an opportunity.

Armed with good information, businesses can play a powerful role in supporting sustainable fisheries and clean aquaculture operations—and in the process both respond to rising consumer concerns and invest in the long-term viability of their business.

This report represents an extensive research effort by the Alliance for Environmental Innovation on the environmental impacts, costs, and supply availability of a broad range of seafood products. Our research shows that, while some seafood products have major environmental problems, a wide variety of high quality, reasonably priced, and environmentally responsible products are available. For most of the unsustainable seafood products, alternatives exist that are similar in taste and texture, often lower in cost, and with greater supply stability.

To determine whether a fishery is environmentally preferable, our researchers looked into the following factors: how abundant a species of fish is, how many fish are being caught, what other types of animals are caught with the fish, whether endangered species are harmed, what effects the fishing gear has on ocean habitats, and how management agencies have responded to these concerns.

For farmed seafood, we looked into the type of system used to farm the fish, whether the farms release pollution in the water, what types of chemicals are used, the amount of wild fish that are used as feed, and whether the farmed species is native to where it is raised.

Download Business Guide to Sustainable Seafood

PDF format, 974KB, 101Pages.

Alliance for Environmental Innovation
A PROJECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
www.EnvironmentalDefense.org/

Environmental Defense is dedicated to protecting the environmental rights of all people, including the right to clean air, clean water, healthy food and flourishing ecosystems.Guided by science, we work to create practical solutions that win lasting political, economic and social support because they are nonpartisan, cost-effective and fair.

The Alliance for Environmental Innovation, a project of Environmental Defense, works cooperatively with companies to create environmental solutions that make business sense.

For more information, please visit www.EnvironmentalDefense.org/Alliance.

GLOSSARY
Anadromous Fish that migrate from the sea (salt water) to rivers or streams (fresh water) to spawn. This includes salmon.When fish go the other direction to spawn (from rivers to the sea), they are called catadromous.

Bushel Equal to 32 quarts or 8 gallons. Often used when measuring units of clams, oysters and mussels.

Bycatch The portion of a fishing catch that is discarded as unwanted or commercially unuseable.

Bloodline Darker, stronger tasting meat in fish that runs parallel to the backbone from head to tail.

Bycatch reduction device (BRD) Any of a number of implements that have been certified to reduce the likelihood of capturing non-target species.

Deep skinned Skinning to a level that removes the subcutaneous fat layer between the skin and muscle tissue. The fat layer is the source of much of a fish’s oil and pronounced flavor.

Dredging This is a method used to capture shellfish, mainly scallops, clams, oysters and mussels. Essentially, a dredge is a metal rake that is dragged across the ocean bottom, scraping up shellfish that are held in a chain-mesh bag. Dredges vary from hand-operated to much larger, hydraulically operated ones, such as those used to harvest sea scallops and surf clams.

Dressed Refers to a fish that has been gutted and had its organs removed.

Driftnet A term used to describe unanchored gillnets. Driftnets are used in coastal fisheries for salmon and herring and on the high seas for species like swordfish, squid and tuna.

Eviscerate Remove the entrails of, disembowel.

Ex-vessel price Also called the dock price. Refers to the price a fisherman receives for his catch.

Factory vessel A large fishing boat that processes and freezes its catch on board. Some simply head and gut the fish, while others go as far as filleting.

FAS Acronym for Frozen At Sea.

Fillet A strip of flesh from the side of the fish, cut away from the backbone. They can be either skinless or skin-on, pinbone-in or pinbone-out.

Fishmeal A nutritive mealy substance produced from fish or fish parts and used as animal feed and fertilizer.

Fletch A large, skinless boneless fillet. Normally a term used with halibut.

FOB Stands for Free On Board. Usually, a location will follow FOB (i.e., FOB Santiago), which indicates the point from which the buyer must pay any additional shipping charges.

Fry legs Crab upper leg meat.

Georges Bank, Grand Bank Offshore fishing banks of the Northwest Atlantic coast. Georges Bank is in both U.S. and Canadian territory, while the Grand Bank is in Canadian and international waters.

Gillnetting A method that entangles fish by the gills after they penetrate the net (which is invisible to the fish) and get caught in the mesh. The size of the mesh determines the size of the fish captured. There are many different types of gillnetting, including floating gillnets and sunken gillnets which are anchored on the bottom Commonly gillnetted species are salmon, cod and monkfish.

Glaze A coating of ice on seafood to protect it from harm during cold storage.Without it, it may become dehydrated or oxidized as moisture migrates out of the fish. Green A way to describe shellfish that is not cooked before it is frozen.

Handline A fishing method involving hand-operated lines with baited hooks or lures.

H & G Fish that has been headed and gutted.

Hook-and-line A general term for several fishing methods that use hooks including bottom longlining, jigging and handheld lines.

IQF Individually Quick Frozen. Describes a product that is frozen in individual pieces. Glazing IQF products is important, since it protects against dehydration.

IFQ/ITQ Individual Fishing Quota/Individual Transferable Quota. Refers to fishery management systems that give individual fishermen a permit to harvest a specified amount of fish based on a percentage share of the total annual catch of a fishery. This quota can be bought, leased or sold by fishermen.

Jigging A line is lowered over the side with bait or lure attached and then “jigged” up and down. This might be done by hand, but more often with jigging machines that fish up to a dozen lures at one time and pull in the fish automatically. Jigging is most effective when fishing near reefs and rock piles, although squid are jigged on the high seas by boats that use bright lights to attract them to the surface.

Jigged fish can be of superior quality because of the individual handling.

Loin The part of a fish fillet just above the belly cavity. This is the thickest part of the fillet.

Longline fishing A method by which baited hooks are attached to a single longline, which is then set along the bottom or at a depth nearer to the surface (depending on the target species). The ends of the set are marked by buoys and, in the case of bottom longlining, anchored to the bottom. Halibut, black cod (sablefish) and cod are taken by bottom longlining. Large quantities of tuna and swordfish are taken by longlines that are set in the open ocean at depths typically ranging from 50 to 150 meters.

Merus Refers to meat from the leg section (closest to the shoulder) of a crab.

Molting When a crustacean sheds its shell in the growing process.

Net pens Permeable mesh structures used by the aquaculture industry to raise salmon and other fish species in marine and fresh waters.

Otter trawls A type of bottom trawling, a mesh net used to collect organisms on or near the bottom of the ocean. “Otter boards” or trawl doors hold the mouth of the net open and the net is dragged along the bottom.

Pinbones Tiny, fine bones found along the middle of fillets.

Pot fishing Pots or traps are fished on the bottom from single lines and buoys, one pot per line; or from longlines, several or more pots to a string, with buoys marking either end of the “set.” Lobster and most crab species are captured by the former method (single pots). Pots can be big or small, depending on the fishery. A lobster pot made of galvanized wire may weigh less than 10 pounds, while a king crab trap made of steel pipe can weigh 500 pounds. Pot-fishing has two strong benefits: it is highly selective (not killing other species) and the product is landed live for maximum quality.

Purse seining This method involves encircling a school of fish with a net, usually with the assistance of a power skiff, which takes the lead end of the net around the fish and back to the boat. The net is then “pursed” (closed) at the bottom, trapping the fish, then hydraulically hauled back aboard the vessel through a power block. Once the seine is at the side of the vessel, the fish are actually “brailed” into the boat with a scoop net or pumped aboard with a suction hose. Schooling pelagic species such as herring, mackerel, salmon, squid and sardines are usually taken by seine.

Refreshed Terminology that refers to the practice of thawing out whole fish, filleting it and selling the fillets in a thawed state without re-freezing them.

Roe Fish eggs. The eggs of many species are a delicacy, and harvested for caviar.

Sashimi Raw, thinly sliced pieces of fish. Eaten frequently in sushi restaurants.

Section Refers to a portion of cooked crab that includes half of a cleaned crab— legs, claw and shoulder.

Scombroid fish Fish such as mahi mahi, tuna, and mackerel that contain high amounts of histadine. Histidine is a precursor of histamine, a compound released by immune system cells during an allergic reaction.

Scombroid fish poisoning An illness that results from eating spoiled (decayed) fish. Scombroid can result from inappropriate handling of fish during storage or processing, or fish that were inadequately refrigerated or preserved. As a result, bacteria convert the histadine into histamine which leads to poisoning.

Sodium tripolyphosphate An additive (sodium-based) used to reduce drip loss. Also can be used to add water to a seafood product.

Steak A cross-section slice of a fish. In smaller species like salmon or cod, it contains part of the backbone. Steaks from larger fish such as tuna and swordfish are boneless.

Surimi Japanese term for the raw material used in shellfish analog products. It is raw, extruded fish flesh.

Tail The end of a fillet that is narrow and tapering.

Ton A unit of measurement. In this guide a ton is a metric ton, which weighs 2,205 pounds.

Trawling A large, cone-shaped net is held open at the mouth by huge plates (called “doors”) and dragged through the water, scooping up everything in its path. There are basically two kinds of trawling: bottom trawling (in which the net is actually dragged across the bottom) and midwater trawling.

Trolling Trolling means dragging baits or lures behind a vessel that is under power and moving through the water. In the case of salmon trolling, as many as six wire lines are lowered from the vessel, with lead balls holding each wire more or less perpendicular to the vessel. The advantage of troll-caught fish is quality. One fish is hooked at a time, cleaned and bled, then stored in ice or frozen at sea.

Turtle Exclusion Device (TED) A device used primarily on shrimp trawlers to reduce the likelihood of capturing turtles.

Twice frozen Seafood that is thawed out, processed (usually filleted) and refrozen in a secondary processing plant from raw material that is frozen on board a boat or in a plant.

Viscera Intestines.

Vibrio vulnificus A naturally occurring marine organism that thrives in shallow, coastal waters in temperate climates throughout most of the world. Not associated with pollution, this bacterium can concentrate in shellfish, such as clams and oysters. When consumed raw, shellfish with vibrio vulnificus can cause severe illness and death in individuals with pre-existing health conditions. These conditions include hepatitis or other liver disease, chronic kidney disease, people under immunosuppression treatment, people who are HIV-positive, diabetic or who have achlorohydria, a condition where the normal acidity of the stomach is low.

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