Editorial: Consumer Demand

Whole Foods Market in the US has launched the first in-store colour-coded sustainability-rating programme for wild-caught seafood.

Seafood will be labelled green (best choice), yellow (good alternative) or red (avoid), in terms of sustainability.

The colour-coded ratings offer shoppers transparent information about the sustainability status of wild-caught seafood.

In the US, seafood consumption declined in 2009, when the average American ate 15.8 pounds of fish and shellfish. The US continues as the third-ranked country for consuming fish and shellfish, behind China and Japan.

In total, Americans consumed a total of 4.833 billion pounds of seafood in 2009, slightly less than the 4.858 billion pounds in 2008.

The European Commission has annoucned a €45 million investment in research projects on maritime activities. The money will be split into four "topics".

The first topic (€14 million) addresses innovative designs for multi-use offshore platforms including their economic and environmental viability.

The second topic (€9 million) focuses on bioinformatics approaches to foster new insights into the functioning of marine ecosystems and their biotechnological potential.

The third topic (€13 million) deals with combined effects of natural and human pressures on the marine environment in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and the responses of ecosystems.

The fourth topic (€9 million) deals with integrated management of networks of marine protected areas and wind energy potential.

We apologise for the delay in sending out this week's newsletter, this was due to a technical problem.

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