33% Agree This Grocery Store Has The Worst Quality Seafood
Shopping for seafood can feel like a tough task because you want to ensure that you're getting your money's worth and investing in the right resources. Per Reader's Digest, rather than choosing organic varieties — when it comes to seafood, the "organic" label is "legally meaningless," according to Larry Olmstead, author of "Real Food, Fake Food" — you should instead focus on sustainable seafood when you're shopping to be the most eco-friendly. An app like Seafood Watch is a good way to find out what you're getting into.
You also need to pay close attention to the deals. If something looks like it's a really good steal, think again. There might be a bit of mislabeling involved. Dr. Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana, told Reader's Digest that, "If the price is too good to be true, you might want to choose something else." In fact, Oceana sampled seafood from stores across the country and found that 21% of it was deceptively labeled as a pricier variety of fish. Eek, too bad.
Of course, experienced customers do have preferences that help them figure out which grocery stores offer better quality seafood compared to their peers. A Mashed survey that included 593 participants shed some light on customer preferences in the U.S.
Walmart has poor reviews
The Mashed survey revealed that an overwhelming number of respondents (33.22%) think that Walmart needs to do a lot better in terms of seafood. Other names on the list were Aldi (16.69%), Target (15.85%), and Meijer (8.09%). Kroger and H.E.B had the same results, with 7.42% of the participants believing they need to up the quality. The other two brands named were Costco (6.07%) and Publix (5.23%).
Walmart really doesn't impress when it comes to sustainability. As Greenpeace states, "Walmart's progress on sustainable canned tuna has stalled and it is one of several companies mentioned in reports concerning slavery in its supply chain." The organization described Walmart's performance as "mediocre" in this category.
And the quality isn't great either. Someone from the grocery industry warned against getting seafood products like shrimp from Walmart and wrote on Reddit, "Walmart simply will only pay the lowest possible price regardless of the quality, the shrimp farms give their best product to people who pay for it ... pay a little more and buy shrimp from better sources." Ouch.