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QSRs need to take lead on sustainable seafood messaging
December 8, 2009 - Christa Hoyland
For three years now, sustainable seafood has appeared on the National Restaurant Association's top trends for the coming year. Yet it's not a new trend for the top quick-service brands, which have worked for years to developed sustainable sourcing programs. The bad news is, few people — particularly consumers — seem to know about it.
According to McDonald's corporate responsibility report, the company developed a sustainable seafood program for the wild-caught fish in its Filet-O-Fish sandwiches several years ago. The company worked with its suppliers and developed standards that reflect that of the Marine Stewardship Council, which certifies wild capture fisheries.
Long John Silver's began developing its sustainable seafood program a decade ago, long before becoming part of Yum! Brands' portfolio. According to Yum!'s corporate responsibility report, the chain works with sustainable seafood experts and the biologists that manage the wild capture fisheries from which it sources, purchasing only from certified sustainable ones. The company also sources some seafood from sustainable aquaculture — or fish farming — operations.
But neither brand has done much to share those stories with consumers beyond including their sustainable seafood sourcing practices in their annual corporate responsibility report.
Michelle Barry, senior vice president for consumer research firm The Hartman Group, says now is the right time for brands to begin sharing such practices with consumers, as sustainable seafood issues have only caught their attention in the past year or two.
"Until very recently, the vast majority of consumers didn't understand what sustainable seafood even meant," she said.
Most consumers still have a limited knowledge of the various issues involved in the topic, she added. They may have heard about sustainable harvesting or over trolling, but they likely don't know the difference between farm-raised or wild-caught fish — only that there is a difference. So it's a good time for brands to help boost that awareness.
Brands sharing that information can also benefit from consumers' growing awareness of sustainable practices in general.
"These days, sustainability is actually starting to mean something as well, just as a general term," Hartman said. "A lot of restaurant operators have found that sustainability also equals quality (in consumers' eyes). And that has a nice halo effect for the overall preparation and even the overall brand."
Sustaining a balance between supply and demand
Chris Moyer, manager for the NRA's Conserve: Solutions for Sustainability, said QSRs have actually been the leader in the sustainable seafood movement, with other restaurant groups, and now independent operators and chefs, following suit.
QSRs like McDonald's and Long John Silver's developed such standards as they realized their supply chain would be compromised otherwise. They developed policies that allowed them to maintain their business model — and plans for growth — while also helping out the environment.
"Before opening up 100 new stores, they have to make sure that they have the product to actually sell in those stores," he said. "So it's not an issue that is being ignored because at the end of the day, if you're selling more than what's out there, then you're going to affect supply and demand on the negative side for yourself."
Relying on well-managed sourcing also enables the brands to maintain their price point, especially as the chains expand their number of units and thus increase demand. QSRs have become adept at substituting different fish species for one another depending on price, supply and demand.
For example, McDonald's began its sustainable seafood program a decade ago after realizing that the supply of cod would not remain sustainable. Now the brand sources pollock and hoki as well.
And there's plenty of demand for seafood.
The seafood species sold in QSRs are all on the top 10 seafood choices in the United States, according to "Turning the Tide: The State of Seafood" report produced by Monterey Bay Aquarium. The report also says that the United States is the third-largest seafood consumer in the world, with the average American eating 40 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007.
As consumers are increasingly aware of the need for sustainable seafood, "that puts more responsibility on our part to provide things in a more sustainable manner and make sure that's conveyed to the consumer," Moyer said.
Framing the message
Charlie Riley, a marketing and sustainability consultant and owner of Queen City Green, said QSRs need to go about sharing their sustainable seafood message to consumers in the right way.
The movement already has its critics, some of whom can be quite vocal. They decry everything from the reliability of the certification itself to the practices of capture fisheries.
To hold off that criticism, Riley recommends QSRs visit the fisheries to ensure that they actually are observing sustainable practices.
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"It might behoove them to spend a little bit of effort and really see first hand what these practices are and that they actually are living up to what they're saying," he said. "Then they can prove to those bloggers: 'We went there, we saw what they're doing, we're not just throwing our name on something blindly.'"
The marketing opportunities of sharing those green practices will be worth withstanding any of that criticism, Riley added. And since QSRs don't seem to be publishing their sustainable seafood efforts, getting the message out there first is important.
"At some point, a competitor will jump on board first, and then it's always hard to play catch up," he said. "(QSRs are) definitely ahead of the curve already, and with the concerns that people have about their food and what they put in their bodies, I think they should get out if front of it now while they can."
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