Green Blog: An Ecolabel for McDonald's Fish Fare

McDonald?s has signed on with the Marine Stewardship Council to show that the fish it serves are caught in an environmentally responsible manner. While the fish it will sell is not changing, the deal will make the council?s distinctive blue logo familiar to tens of millions of Americans for the first time.

The world?s biggest fast-food company announced last week that its sourcing of fish for the United States market, which is entirely wild-caught Alaska pollock, had been certified by the council, perhaps the best-known organization promoting sustainable fishing around the world.

The most tangible effect of the sustainability imprimatur is that, beginning next month, Filet-O-Fish wrappers sold in the burger giant?s 14,000 American restaurants will display the Marine Stewardship Council label. McDonald?s also announced on Thursday that it would roll out a new promotional menu item in February called Fish McBites ? think chicken nuggets, only made from pollock ? that would also carry the council?s label.

Judging from photos like this one, it will be impossible to eat a McDonald?s fish product without getting reassurance that your meal is not harming the seas.

McDonald?s did not have to do much to comply with the council?s requirements. Susan Forsell, McDonald?s vice president for sustainability, said that under the company?s own in-house sustainable fisheries program, which began 10 years ago, 100 percent of McDonald?s fish is already purchased from fisheries that have received stewardship council certification.

In Europe, where McDonald?s products rely on both the Alaskan pollock and sustainable European fisheries, the council?s logo already appears on the company?s packaging, Ms. Forsell said.

While McDonald?s packaging in Asia does not currently carry the label, she said, obtaining certification there would not present a problem because McDonald?s fish products there are also sourced from sustainable fisheries.

Beyond burnishing the company?s green credentials, the deal bolsters the image of the Marine Stewardship Council, which has already entered the consciousness of some American consumers through arrangements with Kroger, Costco, Supervalu and Wal-Mart.

Mike DeCesare, a spokesman for the council, said that it receives a 0.5 percent licensing fee on wholesale fish sales when the label is used by a partner.

He declined to provide additional details, saying that partner data was confidential. But McDonald?s sold more than 200 million Filet-O-Fish sandwiches last year in the United States alone, so the deal will probably work out to be a substantial windfall for the organization.

How good the deal is for the fishery, or sustainability in general, is less clear. As I?ve reported in the past, many fisheries scientists are skeptical about the value of the Marine Stewardship Council?s stamp of approval. The organization, founded in 1995 to provide a market-based solution to overfishing, assesses fisheries on the basis of three major criteria: the quality of stock management and the health of the stock and the ecosystem that supports it.

Some of the council?s decisions have met with wide criticism, including the certification of a fish called the New Zealand hoki that McDonald?s serves in some Filet-O-Fish sandwiches outside the United States. The council has also certified as sustainable fisheries for which scientists say the data is so scarce that any management plan is pure guesswork, including those of the Antarctic krill and the Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish.

Many conservationists, including groups like the World Wildlife Foundation, one of its founders, continue to support the council, and some argue that in the absence of straightforward regulation, it is better than nothing. The Marine Stewardship Council says its own analysis shows that the fish stocks it certifies have proved vastly less likely to be overexploited than uncertified stocks.

The Alaskan pollock fishery, the largest food fishery in the United States, is said to be worth about $1 billion. The majority of the catch is turned into fish sticks and surimi, in which the fish is processed into products like imitation crab. The stock is also, the National Marine Fisheries Service likes to say, considered one of the world?s best-managed major fisheries.

As if to prove that one person?s sustainability is another?s catastrophe, native fishermen decried the McDonald?s announcement almost before the ink was dry. They argue that the commercial pollock fishery is responsible for the waste of thousands of king salmon each year as bycatch.

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/an-ecolabel-for-mcdonalds-fish-fare/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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