Undercurrent news, October 18 2022
Recent research from On the Hook shows that consumers have high expectations when purchasing seafood with eco-labels
- 2257 respondents polled
- 40% of respondents purchase eco-labelled seafood products. Of those, 80% believed an ecolabel to mean there was limited or no damage to the environment associated with catching seafood.
- 80% said that the label meant seafood was not caught using a high impact practice, such as bottom-trawling
- 78% felt it meant seafood caught should not use methods that accidentally catch large numbers of non-target species.
- Over 60% of participants purchasing eco-labelled seafood felt the label would mean the product did not come from a fishery where sharks are killed by finning.
Our thoughts: This poll resembles the results of a YouGov poll conducted for our coalition in major MSC markets in Europe in 2018. Consumers expect that eco-labelled seafood does not impact threatened species, have negative impacts on the ecosystems, or be associated with illegal activities like finning. To date, the MSC Standard does not have strong enough requirements to ensure that consumers can rely on the label to meet these expectations. The new V3.0 Standard will not significantly change this other than to require the globally acknowledged best practice to prevent shark finning as a prerequisite for certification.
