Beloved American Brands in Foreign Hands

by Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna
February 2, 2015

Ask any mermaid you happen to see where your tuna is caught, packed and processed and the answer may surprise you. (Especially if you’re Jessica Simpson, who will be surprised that tuna is, in fact, fish.) The truth is that nearly 75% of tuna sold in the United States, sold by the three most recognizable canned tuna brands, is not considered a “Product of the USA.”

In order to bear that label, tuna must be caught by U.S. flagged boats and processed in the United States. Of the top three tuna companies doing business in the United States, only Dongwon Industries-owned StarKist and Thai Union Group-owned Chicken of the Sea International have U.S. processing plants, but most of the tuna caught and sold in the U.S. market is in fact caught by boats flagged in other nations and all three companies employ very few Americans on their boats or in their plants. These brands are so far removed from the U.S. consumer and economy that two of them do not qualify for the Department of Agriculture’s “Buy American” policy for school lunches. The third has had so many health and safety violations flagged by the FDA that they can’t sell to the USDA school lunch program either.

Sorry Charlie, but out of American hands and in a bid to lower costs and increase profits, these once beloved brands have implemented some very shady business practices and off-shored  nearly all U.S. tuna processing and cannery jobs. For example, StarKist – the one “U.S.” based tuna producer has its packing plant in American Samoa where the median hourly wage is barely half of the Federal minimum wage and mostly employs workers from the neighboring country of Samoa. StarKist has lobbied successfully to keep American Samoa exempt from Federal minimum wage laws while their executives take home 300 times the wage of the average cannery worker. Additionally, in the past they have refused to cooperate with FDA health and safety inspections, have had serious health and safety violations, have recently been accused of defrauding the U.S. Government and are currently being sued  in a class-action lawsuit for fraud by consistently under filling their cans. Surprisingly, these are some of the more mild allegations against one of the big three tuna firms.

More serious claims against the big three include charges of illegal fishing activities against StarKist in Liberia. Bumble Bee Foods (which is being acquired by Thai Union Group, subject to antitrust approvals by U.S. authorities) and Chicken of the Sea International are under intense scrutiny for employing child labor in their Thailand-based canneries. All three use so-called “Dolphin Safe” fishing practices that as you know are completely unverifiable/deceptive and unsustainable, in fact – harmful to dolphins and other marine life.

With all of these issues and a miniscule number of American jobs to protect, why does the U.S. government support the deceptive “dolphin-safe” labeling regime and go out of their way to protect these three foreign companies? We can’t seem to figure it out either, but would love to hear your take. Drop us a line.