- GoodFish releases Australia’s first canned tuna sustainability guide in years
- SAFCOL’s No Net Tuna is the only fully green ranked product
- Sustainability has improved in the industry, despite some brands still sourcing from overfished populations
- Many brands lack clear, public information on tuna source
- Yellowfin tuna from the Indian Ocean is overfished
- Pole and line-caught tuna catches far fewer endangered species as bycatch
Australians have a new guide to choosing sustainable canned tuna. The Australian Marine Conservation Society’s GoodFish team has evaluated Australia’s most popular canned tuna brands – our first for canned fish.
GoodFish’s Check Your Tuna guide rates 18 of Australia’s most popular canned tuna products with an easy traffic light classification: green (better choice), amber (eat less), and red (say no). Tuna products were assessed on population health by species and location, bycatch impacts of the fishing method, and the accessibility of information including labelling.
AMCS Sustainable Seafood Guide Manager Adrian Meder said: “The question we are asked most at GoodFish is, ‘Which canned tuna should I buy?’ and we wanted to make sure we could provide a solid answer to that.
“We know sustainability in canned tuna has come a long way, largely thanks to the power of consumers following earlier tuna guides produced by organisations such as Greenpeace. None of the products we assessed source tuna caught using fish aggregating devices (FADs) – which increase impacts on other species caught as bycatch – but there are still major issues in the tuna industry, and the guide will increasingly address those in the future.”
The majority of brands received an amber ranking because they use purse seine nets, which while better than FAD purse seine can impact endangered marine life such as manta rays. You can avoid tuna caught this way by looking for ‘pole and line’-caught canned tuna options.
The only product to receive a full green ranking was South Australian company SAFCOL’s No Net Tuna, as all populations of skipjack tuna are healthy, and this product only uses fish taken by pole-and-line fishing methods with minimal impact on surrounding ecosystems.
In some cases, products could not be given a single rating because the tuna is sourced from areas with healthy populations as well as areas of overfished populations. Sirena and Aldi’s Ocean Rise tuna both received mixed green/red ratings as both source some of their yellowfin tuna from overfished stocks in the Indian Ocean. Many products list where the tuna was caught, although some only stamp the number of the fishing zone on the lid of the can, which is difficult to find and means little for the average consumer. If it’s stamped FAO 57 or FAO 51, the tuna comes from the overfished Indian Ocean stock. Yellowfin tuna from the Indian Ocean is overfished. If the can did not state where the tuna was caught or had this stamp, then it would have been given a red rating.
AMCS Seafood Imports Lead Dr Kimberly Riskas said: “Consumers should know where their seafood is coming from so they can make informed choices. Labels on cans should include specific information: what species is in the can, where it is caught and how.
“We were pleased to see that every canned tuna product we examined stated the species in the can, something conspicuously missing from a lot of the seafood sold in Australia. We have a right to know what we’re eating, but instead we’re being left in the dark.”
GoodFish’s Check Your Tuna guide is based on the best available scientific evidence on international tuna fisheries, including assessments from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, and is funded fully independently of government, fishing industry or retailer sources.
GoodFish will update the ratings annually and continue to expand the criteria they will be judged on. Our next Check Your Tuna guide update will incorporate an assessment of the risk of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing including labour abuses that are known to occur in tuna fleets.
Dr Riskas said: “We know that illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing made up nearly half of all tuna fishing efforts in the Indian Ocean between 2016 and 2021. When importing seafood, we need to know what it is, where it came from and how it was caught. Canned tuna is making a great start on this, and we look forward to seeing further improvements to this and all seafood sold in Australia.”
