Chicken of the Sea to Certify All Retail Tuna Products by 2026
Chicken of the Sea’s 100% MSC pledge could turn the blue label into a new baseline for tuna trust, traceability and pressure on harvesters.
Chicken of the Sea said every retail tuna product it sells will be Marine Stewardship Council certified by the end of 2026, a move that would make it the first of the big three mainstream U.S. tuna brands to commit to 100% MSC certification across its retail portfolio. For anyone who buys tuna, targets tuna, or watches the supply chain closely, that is more than a packaging update. It is a signal that the market for “sustainable tuna” is being pushed toward one standard, one label and one set of rules.
The MSC blue label is not a feel-good sticker. It is reserved for wild seafood from fisheries certified to the MSC Fisheries Standard, and those fisheries are assessed across three core principles: sustainable fish stocks, minimizing environmental impact and effective fishery management. MSC says accredited independent certifiers use 28 indicators to make that call. In plain terms, the label asks whether the fishery can show healthy tuna populations, lower ecosystem impact and management that can hold up under scrutiny. That is the kind of language tackle-shop conversations often circle back to, even if anglers are looking at school size, bait movement, hook-up rates and what comes over the rail rather than a certification sheet.
Chicken of the Sea framed the shift as part of a broader push inside Thai Union Group, its parent company, which has spent more than a decade backing fishery improvement projects and working with vessel owners, industry experts and government officials to get fisheries to MSC standards. Thai Union said 85% of its total tuna volume came from fisheries that were MSC-certified, in MSC assessment or in a credible Fishery Improvement Program in 2023. By 2024, that figure had climbed to 98.9%, with 97% on-the-water monitoring across its tuna supply chain and full coverage expected in 2025. Thai Union launched SeaChange 2030 in 2023 with a commitment equal to THB 7.2 billion, about USD 200 million, through 2030.
The timing mattered too. Chicken of the Sea made the announcement on World Tuna Day, which falls on May 2, and the company said every retail can and pouch packed by the end of the year will carry assurance that the tuna comes from an environmentally sustainable fishery. MSC says global certified sustainable tuna catch reached nearly 2 million tonnes in 2021/22, and its current materials put 54% of global tuna catch, about 2.8 million tonnes per year, under MSC certification, with another 14% in fishery improvement projects and more than 300,000 metric tonnes of MSC-labeled tuna on the shelf.
For recreational tuna anglers, the bigger story is what happens next. A major national brand putting its full retail line under MSC pressure could reshape how shoppers define sustainable tuna, not as vague green branding but as a sourcing claim tied to stock health, gear impacts and monitoring. If that sticks, the squeeze will not stop at the canned aisle. It will move upstream, where suppliers, competing brands and harvest sectors have to prove that their tuna is clean on paper and credible on the water.
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