Suppliers of Hannaford salmon include notorious aquaculture giant Cooke
The grocery store chain Hannaford aggressively markets its seafood as sustainable, when in reality it “sells industrially farmed salmon whose production inflicts grave harms on pristine marine ecosystems and has caused the destruction of marine life around the world,” according to a federal suit filed in New York late yesterday. The plaintiff is represented by fair food system advocacy organization FarmSTAND, the Center for Food Safety, Reese LLP, and Jennings & Earley PLLC.
Hannaford stores prominently feature signage describing their seafood as “harvested with sustainability in mind” and “Fresh. Sustainable. Local.” One sign reading “Every fish has a tale. Ours you can trust” makes direct reference to shoppers’ desire for honest representations about the origins of seafood products.
The complaint filed yesterday alleges that Hannaford and its parent company Ahold Delhaize USA have reason to know that their farmed salmon suppliers produce nutrient pollution that can create oxygen-free dead zones in the ocean; use chemical substances, drugs, and pesticides that can flow into the water surrounding marine cages and have harmful effects on aquatic species; and manage net pens in such a way that farms experience mass salmon mortality events, among other practices that “no reasonable consumer” would consider sustainable. Ahold Delhaize USA is the largest grocery retail group on the East Coast. It is also the parent company of Food Lion, Giant Food, and Stop & Shop.
One major Hannaford supplier, Cooke Aquaculture, is the only farmed salmon supplier operating in the Gulf of Maine, and Hannaford sells Cooke products labeled “Gulf of Maine” or “local Gulf of Maine” across New England and New York. Headquartered outside of the state, Cooke is notorious for converting Maine’s seabed into fish feedlots, fouling bays and inlets across Downeast Maine with chemicals, trash, nitrogen pollution, and fish waste, and threatening local fishing communities, economies, and ways of life. Hannaford also sources Atlantic salmon from Chile, where industrial salmon farms are plagued with many of the same issues as Cooke’s facilities in Maine and Eastern Canada.
“Maine people deserve to know what they are eating and how the food they put on their tables is produced,” said Crystal Canney, Executive Director of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation. “We trust that the lawsuit against Hannaford over alleged deceptive marketing will encourage Hannaford to take a hard look at all of the claims it makes about its open net-pen farmed salmon products and to do its due diligence in understanding and accurately communicating the true environmental, animal welfare, and food system impacts of Cooke’s practices to their customers. Consumers deserve accurate information so they can make informed choices about the food they buy and eat.”
The plaintiff in this case claims that Hannaford marketing is unlawful under New York’s consumer protection laws, and exploits consumers’ clear preference for – and willingness to pay more for – seafood products they believe to be sustainable. The case is a putative class action on behalf of all New Yorkers who purchased farmed salmon products from Hannaford, within the relevant statute of limitations.
Though industrial aquaculture is a newer system than land-based industrial animal agriculture, and is more concentrated in certain regions, it shares many qualities of industrial ag: large corporations use political influence to drive out smaller producers of food, and use a business model that relies upon environmental degradation and worker harm. Consumers increasingly demand that both wild-caught and farmed seafood they buy be sustainable and responsibly produced – which industrial salmon farming can never provide. In one survey, 88% of respondents said they’re willing to pay more for sustainable and responsibly-sourced products.
“Hannaford made an explicit promise to its customers that it was selling them sustainably-produced salmon. In reality, customers were getting the products of a pernicious industrial aquaculture system that pollutes waters, harms wild fish and marine mammals, and destroys ways of life for fishing communities in Maine and around the world,” said Kelsey Eberly, FarmSTAND Senior Attorney and counsel for the class. “When retailers like Hannaford falsely tell customers that industrially farmed products from seafood conglomerates are equally sustainable to local catch from independent fishers, they help maintain corporate seafood giants’ stranglehold over the market.”
“Just like farming on land, fish farming from time immemorial is not the problem; it’s the industrialization to churn out mass product without regard for the health of the animals, ecosystems, or people that makes industrial net-pen salmon unsustainable, like Cooke Aquaculture’s Maine operations,” said Amy van Saun, Center for Food Safety Managing Attorney and class counsel. “The public relies on accurate food labeling and advertising to know how that food was produced, and when companies cynically slap ‘sustainable’ on products that are anything but, it erodes trust and violates the law.”