MNN - Mother Nature Network

of Safeway and Supervalu customers have read your sustainable sushi book (or can even read, for that matter) compared to those that shop at TJ’s! For example, your rating system is supposedly at least partially based on number of “species currently sold at stake,” so how can a retailer that sells the fewest Red List species be at the bottom of your list? So you deem Trader Joe’s to be callous to sustainability issues because they have the POTENTAL to be evil, or, in other words, didn’t go out of their way to pinky-promise YOU that they won’t? Please explain to me how your assessment putting TJ’s near the bottom of your list isn’t mostly subjective since you’re pretty much assuming that they are in some underground bunker engaged in dubious action without any direct knowledge of their operation. Trader Joe’s has as little to gain by deceiving the public as Greenpeace, so you can go ahead and get off your high horse on Mt. Pious about TJ’s disseminating misinformation and not taking them at their word! You may find this hard to believe after two paragraphs of mild to moderate vitriol from me, but I actually agree with you on this issue overall and I recognize that you and Greenpeace will conduct yourselves in a manner that you feel will garner the best results for your cause. It’s just that Trader Joe’s is completely uninterested in partnering with any outside group or lobbyists, (yes, you are a lobbyist group) be them left, right, or center, and can not make an exception for Greenpeace regardless of how passionate or assured of you own benevolence you happen to be. More so than most with retailers, customers will dictate what Trader Joe’s sells and I am confident that their management will make decisions that will make ultimately make Greenpeace, TJ’s, and our oceans happy. (but not simply because you told them to)

such as Safeway and Supervalu, are involved in sustainability think tanks and industry fora. Some even work directly with NGOs. Trader Joe's does nothing of the sort. As for transparency, Trader Joe's actually disseminates misinformation, which is even worse than saying nothing at all. A sign above a seafood case at a Trader Joe's in Virginia reads: “Our seafood comes from sustainable legal sources that have minimal impact on the environment.” This seafood case contains orange roughy, Atlantic salmon, and many other environmentally unfriendly items. Moreover, we would encourage you not to take Trader Joe's at their word when they deny the sales of certain items. Greenpeace has nothing to gain by deceiving the public. If Trader Joe's were not engaged in dubious action, we would be supporting them rather than protesting their operation.