Shoppers are being duped by dubious salmon eco-certifications, according to a report by advocate and watchdog SeaChoice.

Launched in 2006, SeaChoice is a joint venture between conservation groups Ecology Action Centre, The David Suzuki Foundation and Living Oceans. It has been raising awareness about seafood sustainability among Canadians and tracking claims made by brands and a variety of seafood labelling certification programs.

In its most recent audit of the seafood market, SeaChoice found that claims related to “best practices” or “responsibly farmed” are often spurious when it comes to salmon from open-net pen farms. Farmed salmon scores were low for most grocers, as nearly all received failing scores for their lack of progress to remove farmed salmon from their stores or take actions to improve their sourcing.

The national average for key performance sustainable practice indicators across all eight grocers decreased from 71% in 2022 to 68% in 2023.

The report singled out Costco, Co-op, Loblaw, Metro, Save-On and Walmart for continuing to sell salmon raised in open-net pen farms, while also relying on farmed salmon certifications that are not fit for purpose. These certifications, including the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Best Aquaculture Practices, “fail to adequately protect wild salmon from disease or sea lice impacts from certified farms,” according to SeaChoice.

SeaChoice has previously urged consumers to exercise caution when it comes to ASC labels, as it has broken from the Salmon Standard, guidelines set by a group of industry and conservation stakeholders.

Most grocers avoid labelling products as “farmed,” but all grocers label “wild” on at least some seafood, which makes shoppers unable to make informed choices. According to SeaChoice, Metro and Costco were the only two banners that labeled farmed as farmed. Those two grocers saw their sustainable practice indicator scores stay the same, bucking the trend of decreases across most grocers.

Two grocers stood out above the rest, SeaChoice notes. Sobeys was the only grocer to improve its sustainability score (from 34% to 68%) primarily due to preferentially sourcing and promoting closed-containment farmed salmon, and submitted letters (along with Save-On Foods) to the Aquaculture Stewardship Council encouraging improvements to their certification. Pattison-owned banner Buy-Low Foods, the report notes, continues to be the only grocer to refrain from selling farmed salmon altogether.

While all grocers have committed not to sell genetically engineered salmon, more than half of grocers still don’t include all the seafood they sell under their sustainability commitments.

“That means a significant amount of seafood — from canned salmon and tuna to frozen seafood — is being ignored,” says SeaChoice supply chain analyst Dana Cleaveley. “For healthy oceans, we need grocers to be addressing all seafood sold in their stores, not just some.”

Federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray is expected to announce the details for the British Columbia open-net pen transition plan, stating that voluntary governance measures are not the answer.