Greenpeace has delivered fake Clover Leaf tuna cans. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Greenpeace launches campaign against tuna firm

Greenpeace has launched a campaign against Clover Leaf Seafoods’ canned tuna through a parody website and the distribution of fake tuna cans with the label “Just Tuna?” The aim is to inform customers of the many species killed in the process of fishing for the company’s tuna with fish aggregating devices (FADs).

“Clover Leaf talks a green game about its tuna but it lags far behind in greening the contents of its cans,” stressed Sarah King, Greenpeace oceans campaign coordinator. 

King said it is untenable for the company to wait until research comes out to help it waste less marine life -- such as sea turtles, sharks and even seabirds caught as by-catch -- instead of taking action now.

A turtle swims around a FAD near the northern Galapagos Islands. (Photo: Alex Hofford / Greenpeace)

Clover Leaf -- which enjoys the largest canned tuna market share in the country -- is a major offender in canning unsustainably caught tuna and its power in the market means it has a crucial role in greening canned seafood in supermarkets across Canada, the environmental organisation said.

“Greenpeace has taken Clover Leaf’s Take 5 recipe campaign and used it on our website to create an opportunity for customers to send in tuna-less recipes until the company decides to start sourcing tuna responsibly,” said King.

Greenpeace estimates that by-catch from purse seine fisheries using FADs would equal about one billion cans of tuna a year. Greenpeace changed Clover Leaf’s tagline on its logo from “Love the taste every time” to “Taste the waste every time.”

Greenpeace volunteers have been posing as Clover Leaf employees in the downtown business areas of Montreal and Vancouver to hand customers the tuna-less cans, containing an information sheet about Clover Leaf tuna’s wasted marine life and a branded magnet with the web address. The labels show the web address and a mock Clover Leaf logo depicting a sea turtle with a hook in its mouth and a four-leafed clover on its back.

In its recent ranking of 14 of Canada’s major canned tuna brands, Greenpeace described how not just Clover Leaf but also many of its competitors catch their tuna unsustainably. Since the release of the tuna ranking, several companies have been working to change sources. 

This campaign and others by Greenpeace comprise part of an international effort directed at top tuna brands worldwide. 

Major tuna and private label brands in various supermarkets in the UK have already shifted toward skipjack tuna from FAD-free purse seine fisheries and from pole-and-line-caught fisheries.

Related articles:

- Morrisons switches to sustainably caught tuna 
- Princes to only source sustainable tuna by 2014 

By Natalia Real
[email protected]
www.seafood.media

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