Axfood moves to sustainable fish assortment

Axfood moves to sustainable fish assortment

Axfood is upping the pace of its sustainable development initiatives and will
review the group's environmental activities. This applies to everything from
transport and energy consumption to ecological products and other product range
issues.

One tangible result of this environmental focus is a new fish policy which
means, among other things, that fish and shellfish from threatened stocks will
not be sold in the stores. Axfood bases its assessment of which stocks are
threatened on WWF's red list of endangered species. 

“The first step is already taken regarding the assortment of frozen fish,” says
Åsa Domeij. “We will also inform our staff about the fish policy and what it
means to create a sustainable fish assortment.  Step by step will approach the
goal of a sustainable fish assortment in all the stores in the Axfood group.”

This is not confined to removing items from the product range. Fish and
shellfish from sustainable stocks (“green-listed”) will be highlighted in
marketing. The focus will be on offering an attractive range of KRAV-and
MSC-labelled seafood. 

On Thursday, Greenpeace published a follow-up of its ranking of food retailers'
environmental  compliance with seafood products. Axfood earned a top ranking in
the updated list.

“We set our own long-term agenda for our environmental initiatives,” says
Axfood's CEO Anders Strålman.  “But the ranking from Greenpeace still provides
confirmation that we are heading in the right direction.”


For further information, please contact:
Åsa Domeij, Environmental Director, Axfood AB,  +46 730 77 43 07  
Ingmar Kroon, Press Manager, Axfood AB, +46 702 89 89 83

Axfood AB conducts retail trade through the wholly owned store chains Hemköp,
Willys, Willys hemma and PrisXtra, comprising slightly more than 220 stores, and
wholesale trade through Dagab and Axfood Närlivs. In addition, Axfood
collaborates with a number of proprietor-run stores that are tied to Axfood
through agreements. These include stores within the Hemköp chain as well as
stores run under the Handlar'n and Tempo profiles. In all, Axfood collaborates
with over 500 proprietor-run stores. Axfood is listed on the Nordic Large Cap
list of the OMX Nordic Exchange. Axel Johnson AB is the principal owner, with
approximately 46% of the shares.