We have taken the time to address this issue because seafood is an important part of our food offering and also because of questions raised by some of our customers.

We do buy some of our seafood from Canada, including Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, the two provinces where a government regulated seal hunt occurs.

None of the companies or fishermen that we buy from has anything to do with Canadian government policies regarding the seal hunt. As importantly, none are involved in the harvest, killing, processing or sale of seals, seal pelts, or other seal by-products. We have taken the time to verify this and have documents on file to this effect from each of our suppliers.

We do have some concerns with using food as an economic tool to change government policies. Certainly the commercial harvesting of seals is an issue for the Canadian Government and it citizens.

We are proud that Publix strives to be a responsible steward of the environment. We are equally proud of our long tradition and commitment to provide consumers with quality seafood and fish products as an important part of a healthy, balanced diet. Our stores offer a variety of sustainably managed seafood that is imported from Canada, including snow crab, cod, scallops, shrimp, haddock, salmon, lobster, mussels, oysters, Jonah crab, halibut, flounder, monkfish, ocean perch, smelts, turbot and Arctic charr.

Canadian seafood is a part of what we offer our customers to make sure they have choice, fresh product and great prices. We have taken steps to make sure those choices do not include products that come from those who are directly involved in, or profit from, the seal hunt.

We trust this addresses your concerns. Again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. If we can be of any further assistance regarding this matter, please either call our Consumer Relations toll-free number at 1-800-242-1227, write us at the Publix Super Markets Corporate Office, PO Box 407, Lakeland, FL 33802, ATTN: Consumer Relations, or contact us at our website, publix.com and mention your reference number, # 403114.

Sincerely,

Leslie Spencer
Publix Customer Service
Leslie.Spencer@publix.com

Our response to Publix:

Publix claims that they do not buy seafood from sealers. They claim that they have documents verifying this. To this we respond:

1. We have seen how some companies have redefined the Canadian seafood boycott to minimize the purchasing changes they must make, but this takes the cake. Publix says they have no intention of making ANY purchasing changes; they will keep on buying all the seafood they have been buying from Canada, even from Newfoundland and other sealing provinces, and still claim that they are participating in the boycott! Let's help Publix out. Here's the Webster's definition of boycott: "to refuse to buy, sell, or use." So to boycott Canadian seafood means to refuse to buy, sell, or use Canadian seafood; not to get a document saying that the Canadian seafood you are buying wasn't caught by a sealer.
   Why do we ask stores to boycott Canadian seafood? Because the whole seafood industry of Canada is behind the slaughter. The Barry Group, a large seafood distributor, which owns Atlantic Marine Products, the second largest seal skin processor in Canada, is not the only seafood corporation that lobbies for the continuation of the seal slaughter and the increase in quotas. Many corporations and associations of fishermen actively lobby the government. Those that don't actively lobby for the slaughter refuse to tell the DFO that they do not support the slaughter. Thus they tacitly approve it. Were seafood corporations across Canada to lobby for an END to the slaughter, it would be banned immediately.
2. Publix claims that they have documents verifying that the fishermen they buy Canadian seafood from are not sealers. Although this is irrelevant to the campaign, we will respond to this claim by asking, "how do you know?" Did you somehow get copies of all the sealing licenses issued in the sealing provinces (numbering over 15,000), find out which of these would-be sealers went out sealing this year (or did you include anyone who killed seals in the past 5 years?), and compare them to the list of fishermen who have worked on any of the boats that sold fish to the wholesalers you bought from? To Publix, we say, "We believe your documents aren't worth the ink printed on them."

Publix asserts that they "have some concerns with using food as an economic tool to change government policies." We can't help but wonder whether this applies to the tuna boycott of the 1990's that resulted in policies to protect dolphins from being killed by the tens of thousands as "bycatch." Or were they opposed to the United Farm Workers' boycott of table grapes that led to better working conditions and wages for migrant farm workers. Presumably they believe Cesar Chavez was wrong when he said, "The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farm workers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and their families." But in the end, after strikes that failed to win reforms for workers, UFW's boycott saved the day. It's the results that count. And they will count for the seals, too.

Publix claims that sealing is a Canadian issue. All those who care about the seals, or for that matter any animals or people that are brutally killed around the world, know that where there is injustice, brutality, and violence against the innocent, the world must respond.

Lastly, Publix claims that the seafood they sell is "sustainably managed." Our DFO page reveals that the Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans is guilty of gross mis-management of fish and other marine life.