What Makes Our Seafood Different

Our seafood is traceable to farm or fishery, and we work hard to source it only from responsibly managed farms and abundant, well-managed wild fisheries. 

All the seafood in our Seafood department is Responsibly Farmed or sustainable wild-caught (that includes frozen and breaded options, appetisers, smoked seafood and seafood dips). If it doesn’t meet our standards, we won’t sell it. No exceptions. We don’t sell cloned or genetically modified seafood, and we prohibit 260+ food ingredients, including certain preservatives, like sodium bisulfite and STPP when used to treat seafood. We also don’t allow carbon monoxide and filtered wood smoke for color retention.

From sustainable wild-caught to Responsibly Farmed, we have the strictest seafood standards on land. Find out how we do seafood better than any other retailer.

Sustainable Wild-Caught Seafood All species that we sell have been rated for sustainability and:

• Are Marine Stewardship Council certified.

• Or, are Green or Yellow Rated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.

By choosing sustainable wild-caught seafood, you’re supporting the people and fishing practices that help keep fish plentiful for the future. Look for the wild-caught seafood sustainability logos in our Seafood department.

Farm-Raised Seafood With a dwindling supply of wild seafood in our oceans, farm-raised seafood is playing a more important role than ever. When it’s done right, farmed seafood provides a reliable year-round source of high-quality seafood you can trust. Our standards require traceability to the farm and are based on the best aquaculture science, consultation with top experts and environmental organisations, and visits to farms worldwide.

Whole Foods Market Responsibly Farmed This means the product meets our Quality Standards for farm-raised seafood. Among other requirements, those standards don’t allow antibiotics, added growth hormones, synthetic parasiticides, and poultry and mammalian products in feed.

Marine Stewardship Council The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the world’s leading certification program for sustainable wild-caught seafood. Fisheries are evaluated by an independent third party against the MSC Fisheries Standard for healthy fish populations and ecosystem. Look for the blue fish label in our aisles. When you see the blue fish with the white checkmark, you can rest easy that the ecosystem of the fish was preserved, the seafood was caught from fish populations with healthy numbers, and the fishery is responsibly regulated and managed.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program We collaborate with non-profit Monterey Bay Aquarium to provide color-coded sustainability ratings for wild-caught seafood we offer that is not certified by Marine Stewardship Council.

• Green: Abundant, well-managed fishery. Environmentally friendly catch method.

• Yellow: Some concerns with abundance, catch method or fishery management.

• Red: We don’t sell red-rated wild seafood in our Seafood department unless it’s Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable.

Marine Conservation Society - We partner with the charity Marine Conservation Society (MCS) to aid in their mission of working to solve the climate crisis, protecting marine wildlife and cleaning up our ocean. MCS works with businesses to catch, produce and source seafood sustainably. Their Good Fish Guide uses a range of sustainability ratings from 1 (most sustainable choice) to 5 (least sustainable choice) to rate both wild-caught and farmed seafood to help consumers make informed shopping decisions. We are proud to only sell wild fish at Whole Foods Market ranked 1 – 3 using the MCS Good Fish Guide.