Trader Joe's Phased Out These Popular Seafood Products To Protect Ocean Ecosystems

Sometimes, Trader Joe's removes products just because they don't sell well: Despite its reputation, the supermarket does make some bad products (and that's not to mention some notable TJ's recalls). But in the case of several seafood products, Trader Joe's actually stopped selling them for environmental reasons. From 2005 to 2012, Trader Joe's took four varieties of seafood off its shelves: Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, red snapper, and swordfish.

The first to go was Chilean sea bass, known for its buttery, flaky flesh — although the name Chilean sea bass is arguably misleading marketing-speak, as the fish is not actually bass, but the "Patagonian toothfish". Whatever you call it, it was nearly fished into oblivion in the Southern Ocean in the '90s and early 2000s, with illegally fished "bass" outnumbering the legally-obtained ones. On top of that, the fishing gear used to catch them would also ensnare sea birds, including endangered species. Whole Foods was actually faster in stopping sales, cutting the fish from its offerings in 1999, while Trader Joe's did it in 2005. Illegal fishing has been drastically cut back, so some varieties of Chilean sea bass are now considered responsible to eat, but not those caught off the coast of Chile.

Next, Trader Joe's stopped selling orange roughy in 2009, arguably due to a campaign from Greenpeace. This fish doesn't reproduce until it's about 30 years old, so although much of the overfishing was in the '80s and '90s, it will take a long time to replenish. So, it's still considered one to avoid.

The rationale for Trader Joe's taking red snapper and swordfish off the menu is roughly similar (in short, they were also overfished), although there are some specifics. Red snapper came off the shelves in 2010. In the Gulf of Mexico, its numbers started declining in the 1800s, although it wasn't until the 1990s that serious concern was raised — at that point, it had declined to just 2% of its original population. The good news is that red snapper repopulates faster than, say, orange roughy, and "healthy" numbers may be reached by the 2030s. But there's another quirk: Red snapper is also often mislabeled, with one study suggesting 90% of "red snapper" is actually other fish like tilapia — so that's another reason not to sell it.

Finally there's swordfish, which was removed in 2012: This was a little more specific, with Trader Joe's specifically targeting swordfish caught in southeast Asia. Swordfish populations are believed to have dropped around 90% since the 1950s, but Trader Joe's also noted that "destructive fishing methods" were another issue, which involves methods from bombing to excessive nets that catch anything and everything in their path.

Of course, these product withdrawals were a long time ago, so has Trader Joe's brought any of them back? Chilean sea bass hasn't come back, nor has orange roughy or red snapper. It seems swordfish is still available, likely because the store only targeted swordfish from Asia, not from other locations.