Bumble Bee Foods Launches Marine Stewardship Council Certified Line

Bumble Bee Foods, a North American seafood company, announced a new product line called Wild Selections which is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The first Wild Selections products to be launched this year include MSC-certified albacore and lightmeat tuna. Other products that will be launched later include MSC-certified salmon, shrimp, clams and sardines. Wild Selections will be managed outside of Bumble Bee's core franchise and business structure.

Part of the sales from Wild Selections will go to WWF's efforts to protect marine life and expand sustainable fishing practices. A total of thirteen cents per can, for a minimum of $1 million, will be donated over the next five years. The largest traded food commodity in the world is seafood, with approximately three billion people relying on seafood as their main source of protein. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 55 percent of the world's fisheries are fished to the maximum sustainable yield, while 30 percent have been pushed beyond their biological limits.

The introduction of Wild Selections is a natural step in the work that Bumble Bee has been involved in to support responsible global fisheries management," Bumble Bee President and CEO Chris Lischewski said.

"MSC provides that assurance, rewards sustainable fishing practices and encourages improvements in the way our oceans are fished where required," said MSC CEO Rupert Howes. "I am delighted that Bumble Bee has chosen to partner with WWF and MSC for this exciting new product launch and I wish them every success in the market."

"We applaud Bumble Bee’s commitment to sustainable seafood and willingness to give consumers an opportunity to directly contribute to driving positive change on the water and improving the health of the world’s oceans," said Bill Fox, WWF’s VP of Fisheries.

Other sustainable measures by Bumble Bee Foods

Bumble Bee became a founding member of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) in 2009, which is a global partnership of scientists, tuna processors, and WWF that represents 75 percent of the world's shelf stable tuna production. ISSF and its partners have committed to certain measures which include an agreement to traceability standards from capture to plate, not sourcing tuna caught using large scale drift nets or illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and funding marine conservation programs. Two years ago, ISSF released the Make the Commitment global improvement plan calling for best practices and commitments in the purse seine, longline and pole and line fisheries in order to eliminate half the discarded bycatch in purse seine fisheries by 2014.

Bumble Bee opposes shark finning, or retaining shark fins and discarding the remaining carcasses at sea. Most of the company's tuna comes from companies who are partners in the ISSF, which prohibits shark finning among its partners. As of September 2012, the company required all non-ISSF suppliers to comply with ISSF's policy regarding shark finning

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