Walmart and Sam’s Club announced June 14 they were launching new standards that will improve the transparency and data-gathering methodologies used in their tuna supply chains. The new policy also aims to address issues like the accidental catching of non-targeted species, illegal fishing and the abandonment of fishing gear.

Under the enhanced seafood policy, which covers Walmart U.S., Walmart Canada and Sam’s Club suppliers, tuna suppliers must:

• Source from vessels that have 100% observer monitoring (a platform that monitors machines and vessel locations 24/7, informing companies of problems as they occur in real-time) by 2027
• Source from fisheries that use zero high seas transshipment actions (a process where any fish or fish products are transferred from one vessel to another while out at sea), unless the transshipment activity is covered by observer monitoring, by 2027

In a statement, Walmart and Sam’s Club said they hope all of their shelf-stable private and national tuna brands will come from a Fishery Improvement Project or Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified source by 2025.

"The bottom line is that if we want customers to have confidence that seafood products have been harvested ethically, legally and sustainably—harvested without labor abuses or shark finning—we need granular science and compliance monitoring data from aboard vessels,” said Mark Zimring, director of large scale fisheries at The Nature Conservancy and one of the key collaborators on the organizations' enhanced seafood policy update.