Sustainable Seafood

Over one billion people depend on seafood as their primary source of protein. However, overfishing is one of the biggest threats facing our oceans today. Roughly 90 per cent of the world’s fish stocks are now fully fished or overfished according to the most recent report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This leaves just 10 per cent of fish stocks underfished – a number that has decreased almost continuously since 1974.

How Does Seafood Crate Help?

Fishing Techniques

fishing techniques

The type of fishing gear used and the technique used to catch fish can determine whether a species is harvested sustainably or not. By far, the most damaging fishing technique is bottom trawling. This is where a ship drags a very large fishing net along the sea floor. Trawling can cause non-target species to be caught accidentally as bycatch if they are unselective. This is very damaging to fish stocks and heavily disrupts the marine food chain.

Seafood Crate’s wild caught products are caught using fishing methods such as longlining and seine-haul which are much more sustainable and ecologically friendly. Longline fishing is where a line is cast which has baited hooks attached to it at intervals. Purse seine fishing uses a fishing net that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and the top edge buoyed by floats. This results in smaller amounts of bycatch.

Ocean Cleanup 

Every year, millions of tons of plastic enter our oceans and drift into large systems of circulating ocean currents, also known as gyres. Once trapped in a gyre, the plastic will break down into microplastics and become increasingly easier to mistake for food by sea life. These microplastics are consumed by tiny phytoplankton and zooplankton. The phytoplankton and zooplankton are eaten by tiny fish which are then eaten by larger fish. These fish are then eaten by even larger fish and by birds. Eventually the plastics make their way up the food chain to the larger fish that we consume. This is one of the many dangers of plastic waste in oceans. 

The Ocean Cleanup is designing and developing the first feasible method to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. It is a passive system that moves with the currents and traps plastic. The system consists of a 600-meter-long floater that sits at the surface of the water and a tapered 3-meter-deep skirt attached below. As part of our commitment to the environment and to sustainability, $1 of every crate you purchase goes towards The Ocean Cleanup. Seafood Crate’s donations to The Ocean Cleanup are independent and we are not sponsored by them.

Farming Techniques

Humans eat more farmed seafood than wild, and farmed fish production surpassed wild capture fisheries for the first time in 2014. As farmed seafood becomes more and more prevalent in our diets, it is important that the seafood be raised sustainably so that the environment is impacted as little as possible. Just like there are sustainable and unsustainable methods of catching wild fish, there are also sustainable and unsustainable methods of farming fish.

Our farmed seafood products are certified by the ASC. The Aquaculture Stewardship Council is an international organization that strictly regulates seafood farms around the world to ensure that their practices are sustainable with minimal impact on the environment.