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| Sharks on display and for sale on the traditional fish market in Lampulo, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. (EPA Photo/File) |
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Singapore.
French retail giant Carrefour will halt sales of shark fin products in its
Singapore outlets after current stocks run out as a supermarket boycott of the delicacy
gains steam, media reported on Saturday.
A Carrefour
spokesman told the Straits Times it will not replenish its stocks of the
environmentally controversial products after they sell out.
The company
is the world’s second-largest retailer and operates two supermarkets in
Singapore’s city center.
It told the
paper the decision was made on its own initiative as a socially responsible
retailer, but it could not be reached for comment on whether the ban would
extend to its other outlets worldwide.
Shark fin
remains a sought after delicacy in Singapore, where it is largely served at
Chinese festive celebrations and wedding receptions.
According
to the conservation group WWF, the city-state is the world’s second largest
shark fin trading centre after Hong Kong.
WWF-Hong
Kong says the consumption of shark fins is a driving factor behind the threat
to shark populations, with more than 180 species considered threatened in 2010
compared to only 15 in 1996.
The
Carrefour report came a day after Singapore’s largest supermarket chain NTUC
FairPrice declared it was halting sales of shark fin products.
NTUC
FairPrice -- a cooperative run by the city-state’s national trades union --
said it would drop the products from April after an inflammatory comment by one
of its suppliers attracted a flurry of complaints.
The
supplier had said “Screw the divers!” in an online promotional message for a
new product to be launched at FairPrice outlets during the upcoming Lunar New
Year.
The
comment, apparently directed at divers campaigning against the shark fin trade,
went viral on Facebook and microblogging site Twitter.
Retailer
Cold Storage was the first Singapore chain to stop selling shark fin, which it
did in September last year as part of a collaboration with WWF, local media
reported.
Agence France-Presse
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