This is a challenge that we at Ocean Wise are confronted with on a daily basis when working with the businesses we work with to try to source back to the environmental performance of the production of that seafood.
A really good example of how we are challenged could be that a label that a consumer sees might be on a piece of sockeye salmon that's been smoked, and it might say “Product of Canada” on it. That might be confusing for consumers, let's say, if the sockeye fishery was potentially shut down that year because we had a low return or something like that.
That sockeye is likely being sourced from either Russia or Alaska, but it's being smoked here in Canada, so it gets to say that it's a Canadian sockeye salmon fillet. That's all the consumer sees at the point of sale.
This is problematic, because it doesn't give the consumers the full information they should have about the status of our salmon stocks here in Canada, whether the fisheries are open, or whether they can feel good about eating that Canadian product. Nor does it tell them anything about the environmental performance, because they don't even know where it was fished.
Our labels absolutely have to show the point of production and the method of production. By that I mean, for “wild”, where was that fish caught? What type of gear was used? Or, if it's “farmed”, how was it farmed and what is the specific species that was being farmed?. Otherwise, we have no idea about the environmental impact of that method of production.
You brought up a good example about Atlantic salmon being organic. Well, some might call any wild-caught fish organic, but this fish has actually likely been farmed, so it's being farmed to an organic standard. Again, if that's all it says on it, the consumer has no information upon which to base their decisions.
We absolutely need the species, method, scientific name and granular data to be available to the consumers, at the very least so that they can make decisions that align with their values when they're purchasing seafood.