European Retailers Boycott Bluefin, Will US Chefs Follow?

In response to dramatic overfishing of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, a number of major European retailers took matters into their own hands and declared a boycott on selling the endangered fish, WWF said in a press release.

France's Auchan group, with a nearly 14 percent share of the retail fish trade, declared its boycott on December 28, noting that scientists had advised a 15,000 metric ton ceiling on annual catches, while the international tuna management body was allowing a 2008 quota of 29,500 tons.

Carrefour in Italy, Coop in both Italy and Switzerland, and ICA in Norway also stopped selling Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

"This year we have seen it all - fishing during the closed season, use of illegal spotting planes, massive over-quota catches, an international web of fraud to conceal the catches, fish laundering – the stock does not stand a chance under this onslaught and the failure of ICCAT contracting parties to implement the adopted management plan renders it devoid of content and of any meaningful conservation impact. The situation could not be more serious," said Marine Conservationist Sergi Tudela of WWF.

“It is the most scandalous case of fisheries mismanagement currently happening in the world and certainly one of the worst I have ever witnessed."

So will American chefs stand up as well and stop serving an endangered species?

What Fish Should I Eat? Get a Cell Phone Guide

With all the recent news on overfishing and toxicity in fish, it's easy to get the message that we shouldn't be eating fish. That isn't the case, since there are sustainable fisheries -- that is populations where the fishing is well-managed for the future -- that deserve support. Alaskan salmon, cod and halibut are often mentioned. But there are many others as well.

Many organizations offer wallet-sized cards on making smart seafood choices, but here are a list of web sites that I found especially helpful.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's seafood watch program has a wealth of information that is easy to search. They've also just issued their 2008 pocket guides of seafood choices, based upon where you live. Or better yet, link the browser on your cell phone to www.seafoodwatch.org to call up the guide in a restaurant or while shopping.

Blue Oceans Institute, founded by MacArthur Fellow and author Carl Safina, is very active in this area as well. It has a Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood, with five ratings from green to red. But what I really like is their text-message service, fish phone, that immediately tells you about the fish you're ordering. Text 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question. "We’ll text you back with our assessment and better alternatives to fish with significant environmental concerns," they say. I tried it. It works. And it's very easy to use in the market or a restaurant.

Environmental Defense has an eco-friendly seafood selector, available on the web or in a pocket guide. ED has done a lot of good  work on toxicity, and the choices in their easy-to-read guide emphasize that point. Here's a link to their green choices, which include Alaskan salmon, farmed-raised mussels and oysters, trout, catfish (domestic),  tilapia (domestic) and yellow fin tuna. Also available in a pocket guide.

Finally, for kids, check out Kids Safe Seafood, which looks at these issues (especially toxicity), specifically for children.

The point is that there are good choices available for seafood. You just gotta do the legwork.

Mercury Rising in Tuna, But Will Concern Last?

Image source: New York Times

Marian Burros of the Times had a revealing piece today on tuna sushi, showing that restaurant and store samples had so much mercury that six pieces a week would be deemed a health risk by the EPA.

The story ranked as the most emailed item on the Times' web site, evidence of just how much health concerns prompt reaction from readers and eaters.

The question, though, is whether this concern will last.

When stories came out on the risk of PCBs in farmed salmon, sales dipped by about 20 percent for about six months. But Tim Fitzgerald, a scientist in the Oceans Program at Environmental Defense, told me in a phone call this morning that sales rebounded and "now they're higher than ever."

This parallels food scares in general. An immediate high-profile story will lead to a change in habits, but then memories will fade and habits return -- that is, if there are habits to return to. To gradually change consumer tastes over the long-term is more difficult, but doable, and takes work on the chef side. For if restaurants don't serve it, diners won't eat it.

In the case of tuna, Burros quoted a restaurateur and retailer who expressed surprise at the findings. (Reminds me of that line from Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!") If you are in the seafood business, you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to ignore the mercury warnings on tuna, especially in larger species like bluefin where mercury are known to accumulate.

I was also surprised that so many of the restaurants were actually serving bluefin tuna, a species that is so close to collapse (that is, disappearance) that eating it is akin to dining on an endangered species. There have been gobs of articles on the plight of the bluefin for years, and this illuminating piece from 60 Minutes this past weekend that is worth watching if you haven't seen it. But since this warning has clearly not yet struck a chord, chefs continue to turn a blind eye and serve the fish up. (Not to oversimplify, since some chefs and groups such as Chefs Collaborative do emphasize sustainable fish).

Now, I imagine, this series will alter menus, at least initially. Fearful of mercury poisoning, eaters will shy away from tuna and restaurants will have to avoid bluefin, unless they want to put warning signs on their menus. The upshot: maybe bluefin will now have a chance at rebounding, if restaurants switch to other more sustainable and lower toxicity species, such as yellow fin tuna.

But if chefs don't respond, diners will continue to get doses of mercury until the big tuna run out.

To see how restaurants and supermarkets fared in the actual tests, check out the Times' nifty graphic.

- Samuel Fromartz

The Beginning of the End of Plastic Bags?

BYOB: Bring Your Own Bag. Simple idea. Difficult to execute. I've got several reusable shopping bags and about half the time I run out the door to go shopping and forget to take them to the market. But I'm getting better. And so are some retailers.

Whole Foods announced today it's going to stop using plastic shopping bags by Earth Day, April 22. And for one day only, today, it is giving away reusable bags. I hope it keeps a spotlight on that goal, so that this doesn't just lead to a spike in the use of paper bags as replacements. What percentage of people bring their own bags to the market? I'd take a wild guess and say it's probably under 2 percent, but maybe this will help it grow. It's an easy fix, even though behavior is hard to change.

"...We estimate we will keep 100 million new plastic grocery bags out of our environment between Earth Day and the end of this year alone," Whole Foods President A.C. Gallo said.

- Samuel Fromartz

Pennsylvania Does About-Face on Milk Labeling

Under pressure from consumer groups, dairy associations and farmers, Pennsylvania did a 180-degree turn Thursday and decided not to limit milk labeling standards. (See our previous story for an in-depth look at this issue).

The decision means that farmers and processors can continue to state on milk labels that they do not use synthetic growth hormones - rBST or rBGH - a label that many consumers seek out. The state had sought to limit those statements beginning in February.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

The ban was to take effect Feb. 1, to the dismay of consumer activists and many smaller dairies who choose not to inject their cows with hormones. But the move was superseded by new standards issued today, after a review by the office of Gov. Rendell.

Rendell ordered the agency to review the policy after consumer outcry, his spokesman said

"The governor's position was relatively simple: he wanted the labels to be accurate and informative," said Rendell's press secretary Chuck Ardo.

"It's basically a complete back-down," said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at the nonprofit group Consumers Union, which had opposed the ban.

Given the firestorm over this issue, expect to see similar "absence" claims once cloned animals and their progeny hit the food supply: "This milk produced without clones and without rBGH".

- Samuel Fromartz

Cloning a Post, Cloning a Post, Cloning...

For those interested in the flood of news and analysis on the cloning decision by the FDA, check out the Ethicurean's "issue watch" round up of articles, blogs and press releases on the subject. (I've cloned their bovine graphic at left). Once again, the blog is proving itself as the must-eat salad bar for food-related news and opinion.

Now my 2 cents:

For now, it appears, mainstream food companies are being very cautious about the cloning technology, now wanting to upset or get ahead of consumers. But it will be interesting to see what happens as more progeny of clones appear. Will they enter into the food supply in a stealth manner, like genetically modified crops? Business Week pointed out that Monsanto targeted industrial crops for GMOs so that consumers would be one-step removed from them: they appear largely as components in food ingredients (as animal feed, high fructose corn syrup, and soy derived products such as vegetables oils and lecithin) or now as ethanol. So pehaps the first cloned products will be industrial dried milk products used in processed foods. When the public is aware of GMOS, they tend to get queasy -- hence the dramatic rise in demand for milk from cows that have not been treated with genetically modified growth hormones.

While GMOs took over the US commodity corn and soybean market, they are still highly controversial overseas. Given the extreme difficulty US beef exports have had overseas in places like South Korea and Japan, due to concerns about the USDA's inadequate inspection regime and mad cow disease, cloning won't help this market. (Asia has shifted largely to Australian sources). The US is creating a high-tech food supply that the rest of the world would rather do without. And don't be fooled that this technology is about feeding the world: it is extremely expensive and creates intellectual property for the owners behind it. What it does not do is create the means for food-scarce people to feed themselves.

So what's the alternative? Organic, since the cloned animals are (and progeny will likely be) banned from organic methods under USDA regulations, according to this National Organic Program memo (pdf) and Q&A (pdf) on the subject.

- Samuel Fromartz

Behind the Most Traded Animal Commodity - Fish

Fish from all over the world are on display at Brixton Market in London.
Image source and caption: New York Times

"There are no fish in the sea here anymore," says one Senegalese fisherman. Without a livelihood, he tried to immigrate to Europe, following a route that has claimed 6,000 lives, including his cousin's. He failed but will try again.

This is just one of the revelations that appear in a New York Times story on the disappearance of African fish, due to foreign fleets plying the waters without oversight. Europe, facing its own fisheries collapse, is importing its supply globally, aided by such companies such as "China National Fisheries Corporation, one of the largest suppliers of West African fish to Europe." In the second story in the series, the Times points out:

Fish is now the most traded animal commodity on the planet, with about 100 million tons of wild and farmed fish sold each year. Europe has suddenly become the world's largest market for fish, worth more than 14 billion euros, or about $22 billion a year. Europe's appetite has grown as its native fish stocks have shrunk so that Europe now needs to import 60 percent of fish sold in the region.

None of this is particularly new -- you can read Charles Clover's book The End of the Line, which documented the practices that led to the collapse of cod stocks in the North Sea and which also spent many pages on the free-for-all underway in Africa.  (I interviewed Clover, Environmental Editor of the London Telegraph, on Salon). But it is news on this side of the pond, where we see very little about the depletion of distant fisheries, such as those in Africa.

The impact of that decline is measured in attempts by idle African fisherman to immigrate to Europe, the  disappearance of subsistence fish protein for Africans, and the rising price of fish in London.

Prices have doubled and tripled in response to surging demand, scarcity and recent fishing quotas imposed by the European Union in a desperate effort to save native species. In London, a kilogram of lowly cod, the traditional ingredient of fish and chips, now costs up to £30, or close to $60, up from £6 four years ago.

It's doubtful that Europe will be able to control or manage this global fish trade responsibly, given its consistent inability in the Mediterranean of staving off the collapse of blue fin tuna. (That link, by the way is to Carl Safina's blog -- the MacArthur fellow who wrote an amazing narrative on the blue fin's plight in his book, Song for the Blue Ocean).

As for sustainable alternatives, a Times sidebar pointed to a fish and chips joint in London where the chef is sourcing all his stocks sustainably -- at a price. A portion costs 10 pounds (about $20).

What the series so far has not examined are the use (or misuse?) of sustainable fisheries. Clover, in his book, for example, revealed that McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich is sourced from sustainable fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, such as Alaskan cod and pollack. (You wouldn't know it, since McDonald's does not pay the licensing fee to use the MSC certification seal on its meals).

Is this practice still underway and does it extend to Europe as well?  I'd like to know...

- Samuel Fromartz

Will Starbucks Pull an Apple out of a Latte?

With news that McDonald's is entering the premium coffee biz with its own McLattes and baristas, Starbucks says "Basta!"

The company fired its CEO, who presided over a precipitous stock slide, and brought back Howard Schultz, the visionary who built the company.

This is reminiscent of Apple, where Steve Jobs came back on board in the dark days of a steep slide when the company's very existence was in question. The rest is history. Jobs not only managed to turn the company around but do something much more difficult: he transformed Apple into something new, a media company whose products fly off the shelves and commands hefty market share in addition to sex appeal.

So can Schultz pull off something similar with Starbucks? Lattes have gone mainstream, Starbucks sales are stagnant, and now it faces McDonald's. Or does it? The Wall Street Journal, which published the McDonald's story, notes that Dunkin' Donuts might take the bigger hit in this coffee war and makes another good point: The entry of the mainstream companies presents new competition but it also enlarges the market in a way that might ultimately benefit Starbucks.

According to Schultz's statement, Starbucks lost its way. It opened too many stores, became too bureaucratic and lost touch with the experience that was at the heart of its success. (Schultz had touched on these points nearly a year ago in a highly revealing memo -- nod to Romenesko's Starbucks Gossip blog). 

Schultz says "he will bring a “laser-like focus” to improving the customer experience and in making sure that the 'Starbucks experience' is markedly different from rivals..." the Times notes.  

Another interesting point: So many highly successful companies lose their way when the founding CEO steps down. Managers, often from outside the company, are recruited and too often they just don't get it. It's not in their blood. It happens time and again. This is a case study of that process. But Apple is the rare exception where the founder came back and brought focus and purpose to the company again.

Odds on Schultz succeeding: I'd say 7-to-3. But I'll stay loyal to DC's rockin' Murky Coffee whose high quality brew is only exceeded by its long lines. Yep, Starbucks grew the market too in a way that made it possible for independents to steal the frothy high-end. May the macchiato's always be strong, damn strong.

- Samuel Fromartz

The New Local Middlemen

Middlemen are often derided as making a buck off the back of the little guy. What this simplistic picture misses is the vital role wholesalers play in creating markets for smaller, and yes, local, farmers who can't sell direct or who want to diversify their income stream.

This isn't a sexy business. You won't see stunning pictures of farmers in lush fields. More likely, just a steel warehouse with forklifts and trucks at the concrete loading dock. Some of these businesses, like Organically Grown Co., in Oregon, are working hard at reducing their carbon footprint by running trucks on biodiesel, retrofitting their warehouses, replacing lights, and migrating to reusable plastic produce bins instead of waxed cardboard boxes. Others I've come across include Co-Op Partners Warehouse in the Twin Cities, Veritable Vegetable in northern California, and Tuscarora Organic in the mid-Atlantic. There are many more, but not nearly enough.

Amid the din of the Iowa Caucus, NPR this morning profiled one start up in northern Michigan making a go at creating a local wholesale produce business. It's worth a listen. Expect more entrants into this niche as local food grows.

- Samuel Fromartz

Organic Film in the Works

A couple of years ago, an NYU grad student interviewed me on camera for a student project on organic food. Then I kept running into her at various organic events as the project has blossomed into a real film. And now the former student, Shelley Rogers, has won some impressive help for her project, What's Organic About? I am not endorsing it -- having not seen it -- but the preview clip is compelling and hints at some familiar fissures, such as local v. organic, big v. small.

If you're in the organic food industry, you'll recognize some of the figures, including the inimitable Marty Mesh of Florida Certified Organic, whose usual antics (opps, I mean statements) at National Organic Standards Board meetings are only matched by the inimitable Jim Pierce of Organic Valley (whose brief statements to the board should be collected and published as organic poems, haikus and parables. In the future, he should try limericks.) In any case, Marty's in the movie and I look forward to seeing more. Now without further adieu, a promo clip:

Workin' in the New Year

I got this great quote by Studs Terkel in a holiday email. He's the one-time radio interviewer, journalist and oral historian who was required reading when I first training to be a reporter. Something to think about for the new year.

“Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying... We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment, and life.” - Studs Terkel

Writing a story about a restaurant a few years ago, I asked Anthony Bourdain, the renegade chef and writer, "Restaurants always die. What's the secret to longevity?"

Bourdain replied: "The secret to longevity is to decide early on what one does well and then do it relentlessly, fanatically well, never wavering, never letting things slide, never allowing oneself to lose sight of one's original standards and intentions, and not falling victim to trends or unreasonable fears."

Advice that could be applied to far more than restaurants...

This is Brooklyn?

I grew up in Brooklyn. I spent many hours on the subway, going to Coney Island, or to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights. I went to school on Clinton Hill, skated in Prospect park, and cleaned up Fort Greene park on the first Earth Day. (There were empty drug vials in the park then, now there's a farmers' market). But in all that time, I never saw anything like this, ever. It shows how much the urban farm and garden movement has come, and it rocks. The farm, pictured above, is located on asphalt covered in 2 feet of compost. It's from an article by Kelle Carter, farm field coordinator for Seeds of Change, the organic seed and food company. I came across it looking for seeds. Worth a read.