Fish and seafood is a great source of quality protein as well as healthy fats, which is why the USDA recommends eating eight ounces per week in their 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines. But where you get it has implications for environment and social justice. The books American Catch, by Paul Greenberg and Waste, by Tristram Stuart illustrate how.
The Problem Of Food Waste
In his book Waste1, Tristram Stuart describes how supermarkets contribute to the massive amount of food waste in western countries. Supermarkets, he writes, have a two-pronged pressure on them. From an image standpoint, they want to project the feeling of abundance to their customers. Fully stocked shelves are the norm in the west, and no supermarket wants to be associated with anything less. From an economic standpoint, any item that a customer would have purchased but which is not on the shelf is obviously a lost sale. In the grocery business, this is particularly costly because profit margins are very high. These two facts set up a waste incentive. It makes more economic sense for a store to overstock and then throw away unsold food than miss a sale while also taking a hit to their image. The result of this double pressure is that huge amounts of unsold food end up in the dumpster.
This is clearly troubling on its own, however, the problem doesn’t end there. In order to address this issue, supermarkets have developed a way of passing on the waste to suppliers. To keep shelves stocked, it is common practice for markets to over-order items from their suppliers and, if an item does not sell as much as anticipated, reduce the order at the last minute. This helps lower their waste, but only by forcing the suppliers to do the wasting instead. Since supply companies do not want to be short when a supermarket makes a large order, they overstock to ensure that they meet their purchaser’s expectations. If the supermarket lowers the order at the last minute it becomes the supplier’s problem to deal with the excess and once again, that means waste.
Seafood Goes To The Supermarket
In the book American Catch2, Paul Greenberg explains that in the 1980’s, fish markets and fish mongers went from controlling 65% of the seafood trade to controlling only 11%. Over the same time period, supermarkets went from controlling around 16% up to 86%. Given what we know about supermarkets, it should come as no surprise that with this change came a shift in where seafood is raised. It is cheaper to buy seafood from abroad, particularly Asia, than from local companies. It is those cheap prices that provide the large profit margin previously mentioned, which sets the foundation for the extremely wasteful food system outlined by Stuart in Waste. Thanks to this system, most of America’s seafood is imported even though we control more ocean than any other nation.The end result is not only waste, but also a weaker domestic seafood economy.
Consider Fishmarkets Or Fishmongers
These two books together illustrate beautifully the interconnected nature of food choice and sustainability. The supply chain has economic and environmental implications, and waste has social justice implications. These are just a couple of the reasons why it usually makes sense to buy local. It also helps to support specialty shops such as fishmarkets or fishmongers (or farmers’ markets). Look to see if there are some in your area, and try them out!