Seafood Champions

Marks & Spencer - 2006 Seafood Champion

Marks & Spencer is a United Kingdom-based retailer, with over 400 stores throughout the UK and 150 franchise stores worldwide. In 2003, 2004 and 2005 Marks & Spencer topped the Retail Market Sector Leader table in both the Global Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) and the pan-European benchmark BJSI STOXX. In 2004 M&S was named Business in the Community’s Company of the Year in recognition of its commitment to integrating responsible business practice in all areas of its operations.

With a long history in corporate social responsibility, Marks & Spencer has applied the same principles to its food sourcing practices and has become a leader in promoting sustainable seafood. In late 2005, a study conducted by Greenpeace UK outlining supermarket seafood policies ranked M&S as the leading food retailer, describing their sustainable seafood policies as, “detailed, well implemented, comprehensive, and transparent which is largely reflected by what it sells.”

Marks & Spencer has been working with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) since 1998 and sells MSC-certified products. Marks & Spencer also works with the UK-based Marine Conservation Society, comparing M&S product offerings to the MCS’s Good Fish Guide, which lists over 30 popular fish species to avoid. M&S has worked closely with individual fisheries and has created ties with fish farming communities in order to ensure a constant flow of supply for consumer demand. It has gone to great lengths to ensure the safety and outstanding quality of its seafood products by ensuring traceability of all its fish back to the boat or farm of origin. On March 1, 2006, the Marine Conservation Society published their league table of UK retailers, again confirming Marks & Spencer as the No. 1 for responsible fishing.

Marks & Spencer has worked directly with fishermen to improve catching methods. A trial with the trawler Skalaberg involved fishing to order for M&S allowing for specific guidelines to be implemented by the crew. Towing time has been cut to reduce the stress on the fish and improve eating quality. Similar initiatives with Scottish haddock fishermen and small boats on the south coast are seen as the way forward, involving the fishermen in meeting the need for high quality, responsibly caught fish. A project sponsored by M&S, Invest in Fish, is exploring how to improve sustainability in multi-stakeholder fisheries and donations to restocking schemes for wild Atlantic salmon and lobster are also a part of the strategy to improve fish supplies for the future. A “Work with the Best, Avoid the Worst and Invest in the Rest” approach has provided a joined up strategy that drives change.

Through these innovative initiatives, Marks & Spencer has become a leader in providing seafood that is both sustainably caught and healthy for consumers. Marks & Spencer has made sustainability its focus in the past decade and has thus earned its place as a retail leader in seafood sustainability.