Seafood Sustainability Promise

Summary

Our Seafood Sustainability Program is part of our continuing effort through Haggen Green to continuously evaluate our products and services in order to reduce our impact on the environment while ensuring that our guests are offered the best products at optimum value.

Foundation

We have chosen to use the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries as the basis of our Seafood Sustainability platform. The FAO Code is the foundation of most of the world's NGO (Non-Government Organization)-created seafood sustainability efforts, including those of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Monterey Bay Aquarium, Alaska Seafood, and others. It is recognized by the vast majority of the world's largest seafood producing nations, including the United States.

We make every effort to ensure that our suppliers are working within the parameters of the FAO Code. However, we must source our seafood worldwide, and not all parts of the world have the infrastructure in place to provide all of the data required. In these cases we are in constant dialog with our suppliers to improve the quality of available data and to constantly monitor our purchasing.

Eco-Labeling

Haggen does not participate in any eco-labeling programs. We have chosen to avoid them for several reasons. First of all, there are dozens of organizations offering competing eco-labels that are based on inconsistent standards, and this inconsistency has led to significant consumer confusion. Secondly, many of these programs incur substantial costs of certification and/or consumer labeling. This means increased costs while providing uninform benefits. At Haggen, Inc. we are committed to Seafood Sustainability on the UN FAO Code because it is the only recognized international standard, it is comprehensive, applying to both wild-capture and aquaculture fisheries, and it can be used without additional cost. With that said some of our products are certified MSC due to the distributor choosing to follow that program, an example, is our Full Circle Seafood line.

Traceability

All of our seafood products are traceable, in accordance with US Food and Drug Administration's food safety and recall procedures. All county of origins can be found on the sign/package or by asking a crew member.

You can also read the complete text of the UN FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.