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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
TABLE OF CONTENTS WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?..................................................................................................4 HIDDENFJORD CUTS CARBON FOOTPRINT BY REDUCING AIR FREIGHT............................................................................................................................... 5 ACME SMOKED FISH PROMOTES SUSTAINABILITY WITH SEAFOOD INDUSTRY CLIMATE AWARDS.....................................................................6 SEATTLE FISH CO. EMBRACES TRANSPARENCY.....................................................8 NEW SEASONS MARKETS HELPS CONSUMERS UNDERSTAND SUSTAINABILITY WITH STORIES......................................................................................9 WRAP-UP.....................................................................................................................................11
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Seafood2030 is interested in the intentional design and evaluation of the sustainable seafood “system” or the collective impact of sustainability efforts in seafood. The organic growth of efforts in sustainable seafood has led to inefficiencies and unnecessary complexity in the seafood industry’s journey toward greater sustainability. The ability to address inefficiencies and strategic dilemmas in the system is the greatest opportunity to increase the uptake of sustainable practices and ability to address new social and environmental challenges facing seafood.
PART OF A GLOBAL SEAFOOD PORTFOLIO
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
Seafood companies are taking a calculated approach to sustainability, one that creates clear value for their customers as well as for themselves. The major driver for sustainable practices in the seafood industry has been procurement requirements from major buyers like Wal-Mart, Sainsbury’s, and other large institutions. While this approach has been effective at increasing the uptake of sustainable practices and improving many fisheries, its impact is limited to a set of supply chain issues related to reduced risk and assured supply. They do not necessarily align with consumer interests and concerns, nor do the criteria and indicators used to verify sustainable practices create a compelling narrative for consumers that differentiates seafood from other proteins. Seafood2030 spoke with four companies taking innovative approaches to incorporating sustainable practices into their operations and supply chains, designing sustainable products rather than verifying sustainable supply chains. These four leaders in the sustainability space – Hiddenfjord, Acme Smoked Fish, Seattle Fish Co., and New Seasons Markets – had the following in common: THEY APPROACHED sustainability with a company culture of corporate responsibility
THEY RECOGNIZED seafood’s vulnerability to climate change andd unsustainable practices motivating them to tackle climate issues and seafood’s role as a key component to more climate friendly food systems
THEY INVESTED significant resources in understanding sustainability challenges and designing impactful responses appropriate for the company’s operations
THEY PRODUCED a “logic model” for their sustainability work resulting in a compelling narrative for consumers
This approach resembles a research and development process for a commercial product with similar results – a clear, differentiated set of values in their blue food offerings that fulfill demand in an increasingly inquisitive protein market. Consumers are looking for products and companies that take a holistic approach to climate change for example, and industry is responding.
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
When Hiddenfjord offers a low-carbon salmon, they are not simply slapping a new label on traditional salmon. Instead, they are redesigning the way they harvest and create that product to satisfy a growing market of institutional and individual consumers concerned about climate change issues and sustainable protein production. By reinventing the way they bring salmon to the consumer, they’re essentially creating a new product.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? These companies have developed an effective approach to creating value by not just doing the right thing and adopting sustainable practices, but an intentional design of how they incorporate sustainability into their company and their products representing a shift away from more traditional approaches to sustainability. As government regulations, key buyers, and individual consumers require more due diligence and oversight in processing and production methods, food supply chains are becoming more differentiated and act less and less like commodities. The appropriate response of any market where there is a demand for greater differentiation and variety is to design and innovate to meet that demand. The companies interviewed are designing products, not marketing products, to meet this demand. All four companies interviewed have taken approaches to sustainability that benefit their respective businesses and operations. This intentional design of integrated solutions allows these companies to present a compelling and verifiable “whole product” narrative to the market. Intentional design also allows these companies to “sell” the values they have invested in, rather than presenting what one seafood buyer described as “a collection of sustainability merit badges” – certifications, FIPs and audits that do not tell a story or build specific values into a product, though these tools can play a role in the design of the products. It also allows companies to prioritize climate or plastics that fall outside traditional conservation work in sustainable seafood but are increasingly important to consumers. Seafood is already recognized as a climate-friendly protein option, and there is growing recognition in scientific and research communities that seafood can play an important role in more sustainable and environmentally responsible global food systems. Compared to terrestrial proteins, seafood has a smaller carbon footprint due in large part to its high feed conversion ratio, or in cases like oysters and mussels the need for near-zero inputs for their production. Along with low-impact production, a variety of important nutritional values (selenium, iodine, omega-3s) that can be difficult to obtain in food insecure regions, means seafood offers an alternative to importing food or intensive agriculture. Advances in utilization of the whole fish further contributes to a lower footprint. To complement seafood’s inherent climate-friendly qualities, many seafood companies are implementing important innovations around carbon emissions in seafood and further differentiating seafood in the broader protein market. Being able to develop a protein product with some of the lowest embodied carbon in the marketplace is just one way these companies have developed to connect seafood with consumers of the future.
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
HIDDENFJORD CUTS CARBON FOOTPRINT BY REDUCING AIR FREIGHT Family-owned, Faroe Islands-based Hiddenfjord has maintained a long-standing commitment to sustainability. A report by the Norwegian independent research organization Asplan Viak shows that Hiddenfjord’s CO2 emissions from production, slaughter, and packaging in 2021 were 4.6 kg CO2 per kg of HOG (head-on-gutted whole salmon) which is 8% lower than the Norwegian industry average. In the past, Hiddenfjord’s focus has mostly been on the company’s more immediate, near-shore impacts, but in recent years, Hiddenfjord has turned its attention to climate and attacked the issue head on, documenting its success. It is a good example of an approach to sustainability that resembles the research and development process for a new product. One area where Hiddenfjord innovated to lower the carbon footprint of its product was addressing fish mortality. Lowering fish mortality improves feed conversion ratios (FCR). From 2021 through 2023, Hiddenfjord’s FCR was on average 1.15 kg feed to produce 1 kg of salmon (live weight). To put this in perspective of the broader protein market, Hiddenfjord is operating at 4.6 kg CO2. Research shows the CO2 produced per kg of edible pork is 12.2 kg CO2, and beef is 39 kg CO2. Hiddenfjord’s biggest initiative to reduce its carbon emissions came from addressing airfreight, which emits around 50 times as much CO2 as sea freight, according to the company. In 2020, Hiddenfjord made the decision to stop all air freight, resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions from overseas transportation by 94 percent. That decision didn’t come without costs. As Hiddenfjord Brand and Marketing Manager Levi Hanssen told SeafoodSource previously, the move meant potentially cutting off two of its most lucrative markets for fresh product – Asia and the U.S. The company was able to work out the logistics to get a fresh product to the US by sea freight, but then the idea of delivering fresh fish by sea did not land well with
Transporting by sea “allows us to have
complete control of the cold chain, which has a positive effect on the salmon’s quality and shelf life. You don’t always have that same control when transporting by plane, which sometimes would result in customers having to re-ice boxes.” – LEVI HANSSEN, BRAND AND MARKETING MANAGER, HIDDENFJORD
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
some customers in the U.S. Despite this reaction from some of its customers, Hiddenfjord remained committede. That commitment has allowed them to find their customers and tell a better story about the quality of their fish that now includes greater supply chain control. “It takes nine days to transport our salmon by sea from the Faroe Islands to the east coast of the U.S.” Hanssen said. “Transporting by sea allows us to have complete control of the cold chain, which has a positive effect on the salmon’s quality and shelf life. You don’t always have that same control when transporting by plane, which sometimes would result in customers having to re-ice boxes,” Hanssen said. Because Hiddenfjord’s climate work grew out of a commitment to the environment rather than out of a marketing or branding strategy, the company is not worried that the climate message is underappreciated in the marketplace right now. “Many customers value our decision to stop all air freight and choose us partly for this reason, while others don’t appreciate it as much,” Hanssen said. While we might not benefit fully now, we are convinced that it was the right thing to do and that in time, more customers will see value in a product that is transported in the most environmentally-friendly way possible.” Tackling environmental issues with a product-centric approach is more complicated than a simple marketing campaign, but it brings benefits to the company as well. At the end of its process, Hiddenfjord brought a new product to the market, one that is differentiated on verifiable values embedded in their product and aligned with growing market interest.
ACME SMOKED FISH PROMOTES SUSTAINABILITY WITH SEAFOOD INDUSTRY CLIMATE AWARDS Acme Smoked Fish has found a sweet spot for its sustainability work that maximizes the social and environmental impact of their efforts, the supply chain and business value, and the “whole product” narrative about seafood and Acme’s products. The formula for this success is a well-thought-out strategy based on the idea that where the company is having a big impact is where it could leverage the most change. For Acme, that meant focusing on four “pillars of sustainability” – climate impact, raw material sourcing, waste reduction, and people and community. To ensure the company’s actions are resulting in real change, Acme created a transparent record of its efforts. Acme works with Chile-based sustainability partner Greenticket on both assessing emissions and identifying realistic opportunities to reduce them. Due to seafood’s unique vulnerability to climate change, Acme saw a need to think about both the company’s impact on climate and climate’s impact on the company. “For Acme’s climate work, it has been about looking at it from a business growth, risk mitigation, and diversification strategy. We’ve learned from the Gulf of Maine how ocean warming has changed access to species over time and continues to do so, particularly in the lobster fishery. The smoked fish business is dominated by Atlantic salmon farming and lake white fish – a limited number of species that are sensitive to environmental conditions,” Acme Chief People and Sustainability Officer Rob Snyder told Seafood2030.
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
“From a business perspective, you want to be resilient just like an ecosystem – you want your supply chain to be able to bounce back from inevitable downturns and setbacks, and that resilience might come from finding reliable, responsible sources or it might come from diversifying sources,” Snyder, a former president of the Island Institute in Maine, added. With some mitigation, adaptation, and resiliency strategies in place for climate, Acme looked beyond their own company and how they could help transform the broader industry. When he started his role 3 years ago, Snyder was surprised by the lack of a platform or dialogue in the industry around climate issues, despite what he sees as a real business risk for the sector. So along with Acme’s efforts to reduce its own carbon footprint and identify strategies to make its business climate resilient, Acme decided to create a platform to highlight climate-positive work in seafood. “The new generation, the 4th generation of owners of Acme, were interested in developing a philanthropic effort to create a platform where we could highlight and reward what the industry is doing, and that’s where the Seafood Industry Climate Awards came from,” Snyder said. Acme donates 1 percent of its sales to support the Climate Awards. In 2023, Acme awarded $70,000 dollars to three winners representing early-stage efforts to reduce the seafood industry’s carbon footprint. In Chile, they awarded $40,000 to two winners. Because Acme’s sustainability and climate work is designed around a strategic set of activities and programs, it results in a logical narrative for customers about why seafood is a better choice and the role Acme is playing in making seafood an even better choice. Acme’s sustainability narrative includes the work it is doing with certifications, FIPs, and other sustainability programs, but it is not about a checklist of activities that the company is engaged in. Instead, the intentional approach results in a description of seafood as a whole product for the consumer – healthy, responsible, sustainable, and climate-friendly contribution to global food systems.
new generation, the “The 4th generation of owners
of Acme, were interested in developing a philanthropic effort to create a platform where we could highlight and reward what the industry is doing, and that’s where the Seafood Industry Climate Awards came from.”
– ROB SNYDER, CHIEF PEOPLE AND SUSTAINABILITY, ACME
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
SEATTLE FISH CO. EMBRACES TRANSPARENCY Seattle Fish Co. initiated its sustainability work with the goal of being a more responsible company with a focus on fisheries management issues and tools like certification and FIPs. In part because staff at Seattle Fish Co. themselves had a hard time understanding the complexity around sustainability, communications around sustainability was not about marketing or branding, but helping customers navigate and understand the sustainability challenges in fisheries and the responses Seattle Fish was undertaking. “We developed the Eco Score program which was trying to help our customers understand the certifications, environmental and habitat impacts of our fish and we felt like we were having an impact through our actions and with our customers,” Seattle Fish Sustainability Consultant and former COO Hamish Walker told Seafood2030. The Eco Score program provides a simplified scoring of certifications and ratings based on Seattle Fish’s own criteria, and the result is an impressive synthesis of large amounts of data presented to customers in a simple, easy to understand format. “But we also recognized that it doesn’t really matter how carefully we manage the stocks of the fish if the sea temperature has changed, the carbon content of the ocean has changed, and the fish have moved somewhere completely different,” Walker said. “We felt like there’s this risk if you spend all your effort trying to protect a specific species through We developed the Eco Score program which certification or FIPs while the habitat is being destroyed by a completely different set was trying to help our of issues.” customers understand the certifications, Seattle Fish had been tracking their operational impact and internal resource environmental and habitat impacts of our use for years, but more recently the company began to look at its carbon and fish and we felt like we greenhouse gas footprint. Aligned with how Seattle Fish addressed energy, waste, were having an impact through our actions and and water, the company started looking at its own impacts, known in the carbon with our customers.” and greenhouse gas accounting world as scope 1 and 2 emissions.
“
– HAMISH WALKER, SUSTAINABILITY CONSULTANT AND FORMER COO, SEATTLE FISH
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
Not only did the approach align with how Seattle Fish addressed other sustainability and environmental issues, it focused on the issues that the company had the greatest control over and the types of activities that would resonate with Seattle Fish’s customers. The problem was Scope 1 and 2 represented less than 5 percent of Seattle’s greenhouse gas emissions. “We knew there was a huge issue outside of our business where we were bringing in product and materials that were creating greenhouse gases and we wanted to investigate the impact of this stuff and whether there was an opportunity to reduce this impact. Sure enough, scope 3 was over 96 percent of our total impact as a company. For your business, you have to prioritize where you are going to put your resources – if we can make a 10 percent difference on 96 percent of the problem that will have a bigger impact and better return on resources invested than if we fixed all our issues in scope 1 and 2,” Walker explained. The company publishes a transparent impact report about its sustainability efforts and provides extensive information about its seafood products for its customers. While a big part of this communications work is to help customers become better seafood decisionmakers, Seattle Fish also echoed a theme for their climate and sustainability work – leadership. Like Acme, Seattle Fish is investing in practices that align with a strong, compelling narrative that differentiates seafood as a best choice in protein markets, and that investment and resulting narrative benefits the whole industry.
On issues like seafood “ certifications or climate, I believe distributors have to show leadership because chefs and consumers are looking to us for guidance and trust.”
– SAVANNA RONCO, MARKETING AND BRAND SPECIALIST, SEATTLE FISH
“On issues like seafood certifications or climate, I believe distributors have to show leadership because chefs and consumers are looking to us for guidance and trust. Then the market starts to catch on. Right now, the general public may not be as tapped into seafood’s great climate-friendly and planet-friendly values as we are [as distributors], but if we can take the lead and show consumers why they should be interested in and excited about seafood, we can make a positive difference for our industry and the planet,” Seattle Fish Marketing and Brand Specialist Savanna Ronco said.
NEW SEASONS MARKETS HELPS CONSUMERS UNDERSTAND SUSTAINABILITY WITH STORIES New Seasons Markets, based in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., has some of the most environmentally savvy shoppers in the country – shoppers who are making purchasing decisions based on information that goes way beyond price and freshness. The company has a deep commitment to being a responsible company – reducing their corporate footprint and increasing oversight of their supply chains – but New Seasons Market’s approach to sustainability is also very much about delivering responsible products that align with their customers’ preferences or needs. “We are in a unique market – the Pacific Northwest. Our customers ask questions about environmental sustainability and social responsibility, and they expect information and answers from us. I’m in a unique position that I can see not only what the seafood consumers are asking for, but what the consumer in general is asking for across all of our departments.” New Seasons Market Program and Category Manager of Seafood Daisy Berg told Seafood2030. “We’ve always been very forward thinking and try to move on
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
a trajectory along with the customer as new issues develop. When New Seasons Market was working to support local farmers, local fisheries, local ranchers, and small producers and bring their local products to our stores, it was very early on so we were learning how to get these products on the shelf quickly, but at the same time we wanted to understand the impacts of buying local on our local food economy, and more broadly, the impact of its carbon footprint so we could communicate that to our customers.” The process New Seasons Market undergoes to incorporate values of growing in importance for their consumer, such as “local”, is strikingly similar to the research and development process to develop a new product and very different than simply requiring certified products in their buying specs. New Seasons Market invests in exploring potential opportunities or consumer issues on the horizon, designing a path forward that fits with New Season’s stores and customers, launching the product across its stores, and refining and improving the delivery of sustainable products to its consumers. “As we continue on the trajectory, we are doing the same with an issue like regenerative agriculture which is top of mind for consumers now. We began researching the issue a few years ago and we’re working on programs with cattle ranchers in our area. That supply us with beef to either become regenerative certified or verified in one way or another, or just allow them to get recognition for the work that they’ve been doing for decades,” Berg said. While some in the seafood industry address sustainability from a defensive or reactive position, New Seasons Market sees it as an opportunity for innovation. “And now we are asking ourselves, how does the idea of regenerative practices relate to seafood – New Seasons Markets is not going to think about regenerative agriculture just as a terrestrial animal issue, because our customers will be thinking more broadly about the concept,” Berg said. “Last year brought in fresh seaweed from the Oregon coast, from Garibaldi, which is not too far away from Portland.”
“ As we continue
on the trajectory, we are doing the same with an issue like regenerative agriculture which is top of mind for consumers now.”
– DAISY BERG, PROGRAM AND CATEGORY MANAGER OF SEAFOOD, NEW SEASONS MARKET
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NEW APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY: SELLING SEAFOOD’S WHOLE PRODUCT
The launch of these new products with embedded sustainability values is similar to introducing any new product with supporting consumer education about what the product does and how to use it. “With seaweed, we educated the customer on ways to use a fresh seaweed versus a dried seaweed, why it’s good to get this product locally sourced and what it means for carbon impact – the raising of the seaweed and the harvesting and the shorter drive that it has to take to get here,” Berg said. New Seasons Market uses a similar narrative to differentiate other seafood products in a way that better aligns with its customers. “We have talked a lot about the clam, mussel, and oyster farming happening in Washington and Oregon and how that impacts the environment in a positive way and impacts the ecosystems in a positive way,” Berg said. “A lot of it is about storytelling but it is storytelling that puts those sustainability dots together so that consumers understand where they can put their money to have the most positive impact.”
seaweed, “With we educated the
customer on ways to use a fresh seaweed versus a dried seaweed, why it’s good to get this product locally sourced and what it means for carbon impact.”
– DAISY BERG, PROGRAM AND CATEGORY MANAGER OF SEAFOOD, NEW SEASONS MARKET
WRAP-UP In many ways, seafood is uniquely positioned to leverage a whole product narrative in the protein market. Seafood has a good story to tell – It is healthy for people, incentivizes responsible ocean management, climate-friendly, and is essential for food security in many regions. When operating responsibly, the seafood industry can be a positive economic and social driver in communities that have few other options. While certifications, audits, and FIPs provide supply chain assurances and can play an important role in building and delivering sustainable products to market, the companies interviewed are not using these tools as a backstop for problems. Rather, these tools are inputs inputs into the design of their products that fit with the ethos of the companies and deliver value to the marketplace. The companies surveyed herein are leaders in their field, but any company can apply these lessons to their business. Designing Communicating to consumers the values the seafood industry delivers to them, rather than communicating about a set of criteria and indicators that have been met by seafood supply chains, can help the sector advocate for the increasingly important role of seafood in sustainable global food systems.
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