Big Tuna's Big Problem
by Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna
August 23, 2013
America’s tuna industry has a problem: StarKist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea aren’t raking in as much money as they used to.
2012 was a tough year for the tuna industry with prices for skipjack and albacore tuna reaching unprecedented highs. While the Chicken Littles of the sea cried that the sky was falling, prices for skipjack and albacore leveled off in 2013. Yet the tuna industry is still struggling. Consumption is down and the U.S. tuna industry isn’t sure why. That’s because they’re concerned with the wrong cost of the catch.
Chris Lischewski, Bumble Bee CEO and used car dealer, believes the industry’s struggles partially stem from its abandonment of its “Tuna the Wonderfish” campaign, an attempt by the tuna industry to respond to American obesity and apparently tap into the Latin salsa dancers market.
“I think we, as an industry, were shortsighted when we cancelled the category growth campaign,” Lischewski told Undercurrent News in January. “That would have gone a long way in keeping tuna at the forefront of the consumers’ minds.”
That’s where Lischewski gets it wrong. It’s not in the interest of Big Tuna to be at the forefront of the American consumer’s mind. Big Tuna doesn’t want the U.S. consumer thinking too much about its product or learning what has to happen for that smelly grayish meat to get into their little cans. Because when they do, consumers don’t like what they find.
Take for example a 2012 Oceana report that exposed widespread fraud in seafood labeling in the United States. Or the 2012 World Trade Organization’s finding that “dolphin-safe” labeled tuna in the United States is anything but. There is a steady stream of reports of dolphins, rays, sharks, billfish and birds hurt or killed during the capture of tuna. The list goes on, and consumers are not pleased.
The decline of the U.S. tuna market is happening because American consumers are more conscious than ever and have learned not to trust what it says on the can. In an era when the source of our food matters, the tuna industry is finally feeling backlash from decades of antiquated and unsustainable practices.
A boycott of canned tuna in the United States is brewing. It’s not a stunt like the ones Earth Island manufactured against grocery stores that stocked their shelves with tuna unbranded by the deceptive Earth Island label. This is a boycott by those who are fed up with rampant industry deception and marine devastation.
Instead of pointing the finger for tuna’s decline at their failed marketing ploy, Lischewski and the rest of Big Tuna need to implement real changes to their fishing practices. Otherwise the declines will continue.
Consumer boycotts do more to affect sustainability in the tuna industry than any marketing gimmick or special interest lobby (Earth Island) ever could.
