Buy-Low Foods (BLF) and its corporately owned 37 locations in Canada, including Nesters Market, Shop n’ Save, Buy & Save Foods, and Budget Foods successfully achieved their seafood commitment in November 2015.
In 2013, Buy-Low Foods partnered with SeaChoice, an organization which helps Canadian businesses and shoppers take an active role in supporting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture at all levels of the seafood supply chain. Together, the two organizations developed a robust sustainable seafood commitment based on the Conservation Alliance’s Common Vision for Sustainable Seafood. Some of the key steps involved in this agreement included making a public commitment, collecting data on seafood supply, educating staff and customers, and making responsible sourcing decisions.
In just two short years since publicly announcing that BLF would replace all red-listed SeaChoice “Avoid” seafood from their fresh and frozen departments with ocean-friendly alternatives, Buy-Low Foods celebrated successfully achieving their robust seafood commitment months before its deadline.
Glen Genereux, is the Meat/Seafood Buyer, Merchandising Manager and key contact for SeaChoice at Buy-Low Foods. “It was a proud moment for us,” said Glen. “The company committed to the change and within two years of work with our seafood suppliers and SeaChoice, we achieved our goal.”
The Buy-Low Foods team showed much dedication in replacing many high demand species such as farmed open net-pen salmon, Russian king crab, and Atlantic cod with more responsible solutions ou acheter du viagra. Buy-Low Foods has also been innovative in finding seafood solutions to challenging procurement issues to ensure they would achieve their sustainable seafood commitment by the end of 2015.
It was close adherence to these six steps outlined in the Conservation Alliance’s Common Vision that allowed Buy-Low Foods to be so successful. Immediately after formalizing their commitment Buy-Low began labeling all sustainable seafood in-store, educating their seafood staff about sustainability and creating an education program for customers. Buy-Low Foods has also been an advocate beyond its walls, contributing their voice and support to emerging seafood issues and causes such as the establishment of a National Sustainable Seafood day in Canada. Yearly volume and sourcing information for all seafood was collected from suppliers and in-depth work plans were created to eventually transition all red-listed seafood to sustainable sources.
Kurtis Hayne is the Seafood Market Analyst at SeaChoice and one of the members of SeaChoice who work with their retailer partners on sustainable seafood commitments. “It was through very collaborative and close work with Buy-Low, SeaChoice, and many seafood suppliers that Buy-Low Foods were able to transition all seafood to sustainable sources while continuing to provide value and variety to their customers,” said Kurtis. This has been a large piece of work and Buy-Low has shown strong commitment to sustainable seafood; they continue to improve the sustainability of seafood offered in-store.”
As Buy-Low Foods looks toward the future, they will be using the Alliance’s newly revised Common Vision to make an even stronger public commitment to sustainable seafood.
