Axfood moves to sustainable fish assortment

Axfood is upping the pace of its sustainable development initiatives and will review the group’s environmental activities. This applies to everything from transport and energy consumption to ecological products and other product range issues.

One tangible result of this environmental focus is a new fish policy which means, among other things, that fish and shellfish from threatened stocks will not be sold in the stores. Axfood bases its assessment of which stocks are threatened on WWF’s red list of endangered species.

“The first step is already taken regarding the assortment of frozen fish,” says Åsa Domeij. “We will also inform our staff about the fish policy and what it means to create a sustainable fish assortment. Step by step will approach the goal of a sustainable fish assortment in all the stores in the Axfood group.”

This is not confined to removing items from the product range. Fish and shellfish from sustainable stocks (“green-listed”) will be highlighted in marketing. The focus will be on offering an attractive range of KRAV-and MSC-labelled seafood.

On Thursday, Greenpeace published a follow-up of its ranking of food retailers’ environmental compliance with seafood products. Axfood earned a top ranking in the updated list.

“We set our own long-term agenda for our environmental initiatives,” says Axfood’s CEO Anders Strålman. “But the ranking from Greenpeace still provides confirmation that we are heading in the right direction.”