If you’re fishing around for information on the seafood we sell, rest assured we’re navigating toward fully sustainable seafood departments. Our farmed seafood is raised responsibly, and we offer seafood from fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). We’ve also implemented a color-coded rating program that provides you with sustainability status information for all wild-caught seafood not certified by the MSC. This way, you can make fully informed choices.
 
After making your selection at the counter, try one of these simple suggestions at home:

• Season fish fillets with marinade or a spice rub and broil or bake at 450°F for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Serve with a squeeze of lemon alongside a salad and whole grains.

• Grill seafood steaks or fillets. If over ½” thick, turn the fish halfway through cooking, using the 10-minutes-per-inch rule. Pair grilled seafood with the bright flavor of salsa (you can find freshly­–prepared salsa in the produce department).

• Shrimp and large cubes of firm fish are perfect for kabobs. Place on skewers with quick-cooking fruits or veggies. Serve over wild rice.

• Small or thin fillets are well suited to pan sautéing. Heat a bit of marinade or oil in a heavy skillet and add the fish. Remove when it flakes easily and add some chopped greens or spinach to the pan along with a splash of vinegar or white wine for a quick side to serve with the fish.

• Simmer fillets or steaks in a bit of broth or seasoned liquid (try a blend of orange juice, soy sauce, ginger and garlic) and cook while covered. No need to turn, but do baste occasionally.

• Shrimp, scallops and diced fish fillets contribute depth of flavor to broths and soups without breaking the bank. Add seafood toward the end of cooking.

In addition, here are 10 of our favorite seafood dishes for fast delicious meals:





When you don’t even have time for simple dishes like those, try our new frozen prepared seafood entrées available in our US stores. You simply thaw the pre-marinated, seasoned or stuffed seafood (either overnight or while you are away during the day), cook and served with your favorite side.

What’s your go-to seafood dish for an easy and tasty meal?

So, what is a multi-stakeholder process, anyway? Essentially, it’s a forum for bringing different perspectives to the table. Let’s take a real life example. Right now we’re working on developing a new set of Seafood Quality Standards — our standards for farmed molluscs (a.k.a shellfish like clams, mussels and oysters). The process is well on its way and we aim to finish this spring. To create the standards, we studied the published science, visited farms from coast to coast, met with farmers and talked with many scientists to make sure we understood the issues. We also sought input from environmentalists. These discussions occurred during meetings, on the phone and over email. The process can occur in many ways! We’re also holding meetings with all of our supplier partners to review our draft standards point-by-point and get their feedback.

The first farmed mollusc supplier meeting took place January 10^th at our North Atlantic regional office and attendance was great. We hosted Whole Foods Market seafood buyers, representatives from our Quality Standards Team and Global Food Safety teams, and our consultant, Oceanographer Jon Grant from Dalhousie University in Canada. Almost twenty east coast growers participated in the meeting, hailing from Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, Canada.

Together with the growers, we reviewed the standards and had engaging discussions on a range of topics including what makes a production system aquaculture (vs. wild capture), disease prevention, standards for monitoring and preventing impacts to sediments under farms, harvesting, predator control and traceability. We received productive feedback and, fortunately, it looks like we’re on the right track with our standards.

Running a multi-stakeholder process is a lot of work, but it’s worth it in the end because when our stakeholders are involved in the process of developing standards, they’re invested in the outcome and can share in the success.

Look for more details on the farmed mollusc standards this spring!

Availability and limits may vary by region, so you can contact your store for details. While supplies last. Most of our stores do not provide rain checks for sales like this.

Sockeye salmon is known for its full, rich flavor and bright red, firm texture. Purchased from fisheries that are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council and frozen at the peak of the season, the Sockeye fillets featured in today’s one day sale are truly a treat when it comes to quick, sensible meals.

Here are some tasty ways to enjoy salmon from today’s sale:

In a Niçoise Salad

Arrange flaked cooked salmon on a platter with lettuce, hard-cooked eggs, small boiled potatoes, steamed green beans, tomatoes and olives. Drizzle with vinaigrette.

In Salmon Cakes

Leftover salmon makes great cakes! Serve mini cakes as appetizers or on a bed of lettuce or cooked greens for a complete meal.

Over Soba Noodles

Place seared or grilled salmon over sautéed mushrooms, green onions and snow peas tossed with soba noodles and soy ginger sauce.

In a Spread

Combine cottage cheese or farmer cheese with chives, chopped fennel and a squeeze of lemon. Stir in flaked cooked salmon. Serve on toasted bread, endive spears or romaine leaves.

As you can see, delicious and versatile salmon really runs the gamut when it comes to recipe opportunities. What are your plans for the Alaska wild-caught Sockeye salmon fillets from today’s sale? Leave us a comment — and then get to a store to hook your catch for $7.99 per pound!

Availability and limits may vary by region, so you can contact your store for details. While supplies last. Most of our stores do not provide rain checks for sales like this.

Known for its full, rich flavor and bright red, firm texture, you can enjoy our wild-caught Alaska Sockeye salmon knowing that it’s from fisheries certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. Our dedicated port buyers in Alaska form solid partnerships with fisheries known to use practices that promote sustainable, healthy oceans. The salmon is then frozen at the peak of the season so you can savor the wild-caught salmon flavor when you pick up some fillets during Friday’s sale.

Whether you’ve got a family to feed or your stomach is growling after a long day at work, salmon fillets are a sensible and tasty choice for dinner. We’re talking maximum flavor, minimum fuss — just broil or bake at 450°F for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Sockeye in particular lends itself well to preparation with marinades and spice rubs because of its firm flesh, but since it has such a great flavor on its own, it doesn’t require much more than a squeeze of lemon after cooking. I like to keep some salmon stocked in the freezer for those inevitably rushed days. After cooking the fish, I plate it with whole grains and either a side of steamed greens or a salad and dinner is done!

Here are more recipes to try with the Sockeye fillets from this Friday’s sale:

Remember, our sale is one day only, so don’t forget to stop by this Friday, January 20^th to catch some Alaska wild-caught Sockeye salmon fillets for $7.99 per pound!

Vacuum packed to ensure the height of freshness and to lock in flavor, options range from swordfish and salmon to crab cakes and cod. Frozen seafood means year-round availability of your seasonal favorites too. As always, our farmed seafood is raised responsibly, and we offer seafood choices from fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). This way, you can feed your family fish that’s a healthy environmental choice, not to mention competitively priced, convenient and flavorful.

Bring some serenity to your weeknight routine without breaking the bank with these frozen prepared seafood options, available in all of our US stores:

Stuffed sole Monterey ($4.49 each for 6 oz. portion)

Stuffed with spinach and feta, this sole is lovely alongside this recipe for Warm Orzo Salad with Broccoli and Tomatoes.

MSC-certified crab cakes ($5.99 each for 6 oz. portion)

Pair with a butter leaf lettuce salad dressed with a garlicky-lemon dressing.

Stuffed salmon pinwheels with spinach and feta ($5.99 each for 6 oz. portion)

Win over kids and adults alike by baking these fun-to-eat pinwheels alongside steamed green beans.

Shrimp teriyaki ($9.99/lb.)

Toss into a stir-fry and serve over brown rice.

MSC-certified stuffed true cod with bay shrimp and crab ($4.99 each for 6 oz. portion)

Bake and serve alongside this recipe for Herbed New Potatoes.

Swordfish steaks with Mediterranean-herb marinade ($10.99/lb.)

Cube and grill as kabobs with cherry tomatoes and red onions.

Sockeye salmon with red miso marinade ($10.99/lb.)

Sear and serve on top a bowl of udon noodles with veggies, like in this recipe for Salmon with Soy-Ginger Noodles.

Mini-MSC-certified crab and shrimp bites ($4.99 each for 6 oz. portion)

Elevate your Caesar Salad with Parmigiano Reggiano by topping it with these sautéed mini-seafood bites.

For cooks with more time (sadly, not me), we also carry unseasoned frozen Pacific true cod ($7.99/lb.), Atlantic flounder fillets($8.99/lb.), sockeye salmon ($10.99/lb.), Atlantic salmon ($11.99/lb.) and tilapia fillets ($2.99 each for 6 oz. portion), among others. Check our recipe pages for seafood inspiration.

After stocking your freezer with these convenient tasty entrées, which will you try first?

Christmas Eve means a lot of things to different people, but to those of us who celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes (festa dei sette pesci), it’s always meant fresh, delicious seafood (and maybe an early present or two). The Seven Fishes is an Italian tradition of serving seven courses (or more!) of fish and seafood on Christmas Eve. It is said to have begun in early Roman Catholic days when the tradition of abstinence from meat and milk products was strong. Also known as La Vigilia, or the vigil, the Seven Fishes is a celebration and a commemoration as we wait for midnight and Christmas Day.

Originating in Southern Italy, Seven Fishes is now celebrated mainly in the U.S. and has been adopted by a variety of cultures. If you want to give it a try this year, our seafood departments really shine when it comes to the diverse dishes presented for the Seven Fishes celebration. It’s a lot of food, but spread over the whole night it keeps everyone happy and full.

Growing up in East Boston, my family celebrated Seven Fishes every year. In the same brownstone my mom and uncle grew up in, we host a large group of aunts, uncles, in-laws and cousins. As a child, the first dish I always looked forward to was the zeppoles. These are similar to a savory fritter made of fried dough with an anchovy right in the middle. My grandmother would make them from scratch. Of course, the kids usually went for the plain version, no anchovies included! These days, we skip the fried food and start with crab-stuffed mushrooms. They’re easy to make and your local Whole Foods Market has some of the best crabmeat available. Here’s a recipe for Stuffed Mushrooms and you can easily add crabmeat to this filling.

The Seven Fishes feast almost always has a dish with calamari and another with mussels. Stuffed calamari is a favorite of mine or you could get some nice greens on the menu with this Crispy Calamari Salad. For mussels, your local store stocks fresh, live mussels year round. (Look for mussels with closed and intact shells.) You’ll find local mussels from each coast. And don’t worry if you don’t live near the sea, we ship fresh mussels all over the country and December is a premier month for them. Try these Italian-inspired recipes for Campania-Style Mussels and Mediterranean Mussels.

Staying with the shellfish theme, it’s popular to include a dish with clams for the Feast of Seven Fishes. My family likes Linguini with White Clam Sauce and that seems to be a favorite around the country. You can choose littleneck clams, topnecks or whatever size you prefer. Our fish counters are well stocked with clams and oysters for the holidays and we invite you to stop in and get some suggestions from your local fish monger. I prefer the dish with fresh littlenecks and lots of chopped clams – available in our frozen seafood section. Just be sure you don’t serve too much pasta – you’ll need room for the rest of the meal!

Almost always the pasta is followed by something a bit lighter like baked or broiled cod, often prepared Puttanesca Style (just omit the pasta in this recipe and serve the sauce over the fish). It’s simply made with roasted tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers and garlic. When available, try our fresh cod. Our local day boats work hard to bring this fish to you in December when the weather is less than friendly. And in some of our stores you may find previously frozen Marine Stewardship Certified Sustainable Cod, again a great choice for the family and for the oceans.

My personal favorite is up next: Baked Stuffed Shrimp. Our seafood cases offer a variety of shrimp sizes in both wild-caught and farmed-raised using our strict Responsibly Farmed Standards. It’s traditional to only serve one or two shrimp to each guest at this point in the meal.

Each family concludes their celebration in a different way. For mine, the final seafood course always has been lobster. We’ve been lucky in the last few years as Whole Foods Market now offers a great, fully cooked whole lobster – The Craigster, processed under our strict lobster standards. Available frozen, these lobsters are easy to thaw and boil, assuring you of great quality and no fuss. Ending the meal with a Classic Lobster with Lemon and Chive Drawn Butter is definitely a holiday treat.

Whether you celebrate the Feast of Seven Fishes or not, we’re here for you in December and beyond with the freshest and most varied seafood selection. All of our farm-raised fish and shrimp are Responsibly Farmed, indicating that the farms have been third-party verified to ensure that our strict aquaculture standards are being met. Our wild-caught seafood is from Marine Stewardship Council certified-sustainable fisheries or carry sustainability status rankings from partnering organizations like the Blue Ocean Institute or Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Sharing this seafood feast with my family is one of my holiday highlights and I invite you to give it a try. Wishing you and yours joyous holidays!

One of the best things about cooking seafood is its versatility — it can be grilled, broiled, poached, baked or cooked in a pan. If you’re facing fish with trepidation, fear not! Seafood is actually one of the easiest ingredients to cook with and can be one of the fastest to prepare.

Whether you’re looking to serve exciting flavors on a big night or simply want a tasty meal with little fanfare, here are a few of our favorite seafood recipes for every occasion:

Appetizers

With recipes that accommodate a sit-down feast or a cocktail fête, seafood is a delicious way to kick off your gathering.

Soups and Salads

Served as sides or even as entrées, these dishes make a great impression either way.

Main Dishes

Dinner for 8? Table for two? Seafood as a main course doesn’t disappoint.

What about you? What’s your go-to seafood dish this season?

Did you know that the pilgrims ate shrimp and other seafood at the first Thanksgiving? So when the “day formerly known as turkey day” rolls around, we want you to know what sets our shrimp apart from the rest. Whether farm raised or wild caught, you can always appreciate what our shrimp has—and doesn’t have. Happy Shrimpsgiving!

Here’s the story on our farmed shrimp:

Our seafood buyers have traveled to shrimp farms around the world to find producers that meet our strict standards for protecting the environment. From protecting sensitive ecosystems like mangrove forests to maintaining good water quality, our farmer partners are working hard to be the leaders in environmentally responsible aquaculture. We track our farm-raised shrimp from pond to processing to stores to make sure it comes from approved farms. To maintain the delicious flavor of shrimp and nothing else, ours are flash frozen within hours of harvest — without preservatives. Some competitors may sell farmed shrimp cheaper, but it’s likely chemically treated. Make sure you look for the Responsibly Farmed label that indicates the shrimp has been farmed according to our strict Aquaculture Standards and third-party audited to ensure that the standards are being met.

Here’s the story on our wild-caught shrimp:

Like all of the wild-caught seafood in our fresh cases, our shrimp is either MSC-certified, or if it’s not certified it carries the color-coded sustainability status rankings by partnering organizations, Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium. And you’ll be happy to know that our quality standards prohibit treating shrimp with preservatives so it’s simply sweet, tender wild-caught shrimp.

So you’ve set the table for shrimp, so to speak. Whether you’re a shrimp savant or a new shrimp in the pond, it’s always nice to refresh yourself with tips on choosing and cooking shrimp:

•  Shrimp size is expressed in the format of count per pound. Weight is affected not just by length/girth, but also by whether or not shrimp is peeled or has the heads/tails on.
• Fresh shrimp should be kept refrigerated and cooked within two days; frozen should be kept in a sealed bag for up to 60 days.
• Boil shrimp for approximately 4 to 6 minutes (depending on size) until they turn pink and opaque. Do not overcook; they will become tough.
• Grill shrimp for 3 or 4 minutes just until they turn pink. Smaller shrimp should be skewered so they don’t fall through grill grates.

Need more “shrimpspiration”? Why not mix it up this year and serve some of these shrimp appetizers to your hungry guests while they wait for the turkey to finish in the oven? Once they try our shrimp, don’t be surprised if they secretly hope the bird takes a little longer!

Will you be serving shrimp at your holiday table? How will you prepare it?

But we’re not done yet. In our effort to move closer to fully sustainable seafood departments, we’ve got one group of seafood left to cover: farmed bivalve molluscs—oysters, clams and mussels. That’s just a technical way of saying farmed shellfish, but in an effort not confuse these animals with other shellfish like shrimp and lobster, we’re calling them by their real names—bivalve molluscs (or for the non-scientific spelling: “mollusks”).What does developing new standards entail, anyway? The process begins with a lot of research. As the seafood quality standards coordinator, the first thing I do is get my hands on stacks of published literature on shellfish science. Then I go to the source and talk with the scientists who published the papers. I spoke with experts in the US, Canada, Spain and New Zealand to name a few. I also attended the National Shellfisheries Association conference in Baltimore where shellfish scientists gather to share and discuss their work. One-on-one meetings with scientists on the topics of ecosystem carrying capacity and benthic impacts were the highlights.

For me, the rewarding part of this process is that we really go into depth on all the issues we cover, ensuring that we understand the research and the repercussions of the decisions that we make for our supplier partners. When I needed to better understand how oyster seed is bred at the hatchery, for example, I drove to Washington’s Olympic peninsula and spent hours with Joth Davis, fisheries scientist at Taylor Hatchery.

Fortunately, we don’t just sit at our desks. A big part of standards development takes place at the farms, where we spend hours with growers learning about the process of growing farmed molluscs. So far this standards process has taken me to farms in Washington, California, Connecticut, Prince Edward Island, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland and Florida, to name a few sites. When I’m lucky, others on our team will join me.

Special trips include working with scientists, both local and from afar. As part of our work to develop standards for benthic impacts from farming — i.e., to ensure the health of sediments under and near the farm sites — I traveled to a Chesapeake Bay oyster farm with Jon Grant from Dalhousie University to collect and analyze sediment samples. We’re interested because even though farmed molluscs do not receive formulated feed like some other types of farmed seafood, organic loading (build-up of carbon-based waste from animal/plant matter) can still occur.  Many scientists agree that while cultured molluscs provide benefits to ecosystems, organic loading to the sediments is something to avoid. We had a great opportunity to meet up with Jeff Cornwell from the University of Maryland, who explained his research to us.

Once we digest all the info we’ve collected, we draft standards and review them internally through a task force that includes buyers and the standards development team. That’s where we are right now. Next, we’ll request feedback from a range of experts, including scientists, producers and environmental groups. From there we’ll continue to refine the standards until they’re complete. It’s a long, involved process. Ultimately, we aim for standards that set the bar high for aquaculture performance and are the result of a highly collaborative process.

So, when you start seeing our logo for Responsibly Farmed seafood on clams, oysters and mussels sometime next year, you’ll have an understanding of all the work that goes into developing our standards.

Available for a limited time in the fall, these 26/30 (large) raw, shell-on shrimp are caught by US shrimpers at the peak of the season and are frozen within hours of catching to lock in their fresh taste. We don’t allow sulfites and phosphate preservatives so you can enjoy the naturally sweet taste of the shrimp.

Here are some of my favorite shrimp recipes:

Find more recipes for shrimp here. What will you do with today’s great shrimp catch? Remember, this sale on USA wild-caught Atlantic white shrimp for $7.99 per pound is today only, so come to pick up what’s considered the best-kept secret in seafood!