Sodexo, a leading food and facilities services management company serving 10 million people at 6,000 locations including schools, college campuses, hospitals, corporate offices, and senior living facilities in North America each day, has announced it will source all (100 percent) of its contracted wild-caught seafood purchases in North America from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified fisheries by 2015. The MSC operates the world’s most rigorous and widely recognized sustainability certification program for wild-capture fisheries.
What Sodexo says
Sodexo Senior Vice President of Supply Management, Ann Oka, said partnering with the MSC program is a key component of Sodexo’s commitment to source sustainable seafood throughout its operations.
"At Sodexo, we’re seeing how consumers are increasingly interested in seafood because of its key role in healthy eating, as well as its role in the cultural and culinary traditions," Oka said. "Sodexo is committed to providing healthy and nutritious meals; displaying the MSC ecolabel on menus also will give Sodexo’s consumers a way to actively choose sustainable seafood. Expanding our partnership with the Marine Stewardship Council across all North American operations is a key part of Sodexo’s sustainability efforts and enables us to play a role in protecting and restoring at least some of the world’s wild fisheries."
What the MSC says
"We are thrilled with the opportunity to partner with Sodexo, one of the largest food service providers in the U.S." said Brad Ack, MSC’s Regional Director for the Americas. "The commitment they’re making to source seafood only from MSC-certified fisheries rewards the world’s best managed fisheries, and contributes to preserving global fish stocks and the marine environment."
About Sodexo
Sodexo, Inc. (www.sodexousa.com) is a leading integrated facilities management services company in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with $7.7 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 120,000 employees. Sodexo serves more than ten million customers daily in corporations, health care, long term care and retirement centers, schools, college campuses, government, and remote sites. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., is a member of Sodexo Group, and funds all administrative costs for the Sodexo Foundation (www.sodexofoundation.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $11 million in grants to fight hunger in America. Visit the corporate blog at www.sodexousa.com/blog.