Sustainable Seafood

For our guests, for fishing communities, and for the ocean

Our chefs strive to serve only seafood species that are rated Best Choice or Good Alternative according to Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guidelines. We were the first food service company to address seafood sustainability, and we’ve made the most comprehensive commitment to sustainable seafood of any national restaurant or food company to date. We strive to stay abreast of the issues in the global seafood supply chain, from human rights violations to how warming waters and acidifying oceans affect our seafood supply.

Our sustainable seafood journey

In 2002, we partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and learned about the issues of overfishing and habitat destruction in our oceans.
That year, we adopted their renowned Seafood Watch Guide when it was in its infancy and began a nationwide rollout of the guide in our accounts.
In 2004, we made adherence to the guide a non-negotiable food standard for all our fresh and frozen seafood purchases.
In 2005, we co-sponsored the making of the Emmy-nominated documentary Farming the Seas.

We partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium on the Save Seafood Tour, educating people about seafood issues and activating them to make sustainable choices.
In 2011, we launched our Fish to Fork program, doing for seafood what we had done for meat and produce. We created guidelines for traceability, size of boat or aquaculture operation, distance-at-sea limits for wild fish, and distance from the dock or farm distribution radius from our kitchens.
That year, we also appointed 14 Bon Appétit chefs “piscators,” or fish foragers, charged with finding responsible fisherfolk and fish farmers in their areas for us to support.