Whole Foods Brings Innovation to the Tuna Category with the
Launch of Pole & Line Tuna

Whole Foods, in partnership with American Tuna, is proud to introduce two new, exclusive tuna product lines that provide customers with unparalleled quality, nutrition, and traceability of the fish to its source. The Pole & Line tuna brand comes to Whole Foods via fishermen from the United States and the Maldives who catch tuna using a sustainable method called “Pole & Line.”

Keeping this long tradition alive off the Pacific Coast of the U.S. are fishermen whose families have fished albacore tuna in these waters for generations, even as the U.S. tuna fishing fleet largely moved to “foreign flags” starting in the 1970s. Meanwhile, community fishermen in the Maldives sustainably catch skipjack tuna using the same sustainable methods.

With the Pole & Line method, albacore fishermen use barbless hooks and poles to catch younger albacore tuna one at a time near the sea’s surface. This approach eliminates the longline fishing employed by most fishing fleets which results in the indiscriminate harvest of other species. The Pole & Line method harvests younger albacore tuna that are naturally lower in mercury and higher in healthy Omega 3 Fatty Acids than their older, deeper-swimming counterparts.