Sustainability policies

Above is a screen print.

I received an e-mail from Sainsbury's on Tuesday about their sustainability policies towards the fish products they sell. This sensitivity to ethical issues is one of the many reasons Sainsbury's has overtaken Asda and is challenging Tescos for the position of leading supermarket in the United Kingdom. I also like the way they label some of their meat "cruelty free" with a blue and white logo - it makes it a lot easier to shop rather than try to work out what a particular label is really saying (for instance, Tescos will have a picture of a farmer and a statement that the meat is produced to the high welfare standards Tescos demands, without saying what those standards are or whether they are independently audited).



Above: I was haunted by this article in the Guardian published February 2010 in which Jonathan Safran Foer talked about the suffering endured by farmed fish. Especially the revelation that sea lice (which thrive in sea farms) eat the faces off sea farmed salmon. Since reading this I have stopped buying farmed salmon.



Above: article in today's Guardian about alternatives to popular fish. He mentions a "sustainable" fish farm in Port Talbot which I might check. Joining "Europe" was a disaster for the British fishing industry - it just meant that non-British people were given a licence to pillage the fishing areas around the British Isles (and for what? what is the point of joining an organisation that behaves so appallingly?).