A national program that advocates for sustainable seafood has terminated its relationship with Overwaitea Food Group “with regret” because the Jim Pattison Group-owned grocery chain wasn’t sharing information about its seafood sales nor was it demonstrating that it was reducing the amount of unsustainable seafood it sells.
“What we needed from them was demonstration of continued progress over time to their sustainable seafood commitment, which was to reduce the amount of unsustainable seafood in their procurement” SeaChoice spokeswoman Jenna Stoner told Business in Vancouver August 10.
She said Overwaitea also showed a “lack of transparency.”
Overwaitea was the first major Canadian retailer to develop a sustainable seafood policy and publicly profile sustainable seafood in its stores in 2009.
Overwaitea’s brands include Save-On-Foods, Overwaitea Foods, Urban Fare, Cooper’s Foods, PriceSmart Foods and Bulkley Valley Wholesale.
The SeaChoice program will continue to operate in other grocery store chains including Safeway and Sobey’s. It will also continue to operate in some of the Jim Pattison Group’s other grocery chains, such as Buy Low Foods and Nesters.
The Jim Pattison Group is B.C.'s largest private company and it is well known for not revealing details about its revenue.
The company told BIV in a statement that it remains “deeply committed to our sustainable seafood initiatives and has been actively exploring a new partnership with a leading national sustainable seafood program, which we plan to announce in the coming weeks.”
