Save our tuna - Greenpeace Canned Tuna Guide

“The biggest selling seafood item in Australia is canned tuna. As supermarkets sell more and more of this profitable product, tuna stocks are in critical condition.”

So says Greenpeace, which recently conducted a survey on commonly available brands of canned tuna. No Australian tuna brand uses sustainable tuna. On a scale 1 - 10, canned tuna was ranked according to the following crteria:

• If the tuna comes from overfished stocks;


• If the tuna comes from illegal vessels or companies;


• If the tuna can is labelled correctly; and


• If the tuna was fished using methods that result in high levels of bycatch.

Even the top brands use destructive fishing methods. Bottom of the list at number 10 is Sirena - you know, the one with the sexy mermaid and bright yellow wrapper. 


Sirena, which promotes itself in full-page advertisements in Delicious magazine, was described by Greenpeace as “an irresponsible company that does not even let consumers know which tuna is in its cans”.

Not only is Sirena the one which uses the least ethical fishing methods, its claim to being the best quality is exaggerated, and seems to rely mostly on its attractive packaging. The brand’s tuna in oil is 74% of the contents with 19.5% sunflower seed oil and only 0.5% extra virgin olive oil.

The Top 4 were :


(1) Greenseas              
(2) Coles            
(3) Aldi            
(4) Woolworths

But food is not just about ethics - do the Top 4 taste good too?

My household tried three of them (I don’t shop at Aldi), and this is what we found. Coles tuna is a product which varies considerably from one can to another. At worst it is reminiscent of cat food brand tuna. Greenseas is 65% by volume of an unnamed species of tuna, with 12% of extra virgin olive oil, 11% sunflower oil and the balance water.

Of the ones we tried, Woolworths was the best tasting of the three, containing 70% yellowfin tuna, with 21% olive oil and the rest water,

Greenpeace made it clear that not even the brands with higher rankings were doing enough to change their fishing practices for the better. The take home message from the Greenpeace survey is to definitely avoid a recalcitrant brand like Sirena. 


If you have to eat canned tuna at all, do so mindfully of the fact that are on the endangered “Seafood Redlist”, which includes Orange Roughy (Deep Sea Perch) and Antarctic Toothfish (Sea Bass), and support the brands that are more transparent and respectful of the consumer’s need to know some facts about the tuna they are buying.

Even better, stop eating canned tuna at all. This is what many people are doing about chicken, pork and eggs - if they can’t buy organic or free range, they stop eating it.

Commoditisation of this increasingly at risk seafood is against the interests of the consumer AND the survival of commercial tuna fishing.

Check out the link to Greenpeace for more details.

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/issues/overfishing.html