Photo: A Hannaford supermarket in Troy, New York. Photo: Tyler A. McNeil / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

When shoppers buy seafood labeled “sustainable” or “local,” they expect those claims to be true. But a new federal class-action lawsuit accuses supermarket chain Hannaford of using deceptive marketing tactics to mislead consumers into believing its industrially farmed salmon is sustainably produced.

One of Hannaford’s major suppliers is the multinational farmed seafood company Cooke Aquaculture. “Cooke is notorious for converting acres of Maine’s seabed into fish feedlots,” FarmSTAND explains in its press release. The company has also been criticized for fouling bays and inlets across Downeast Maine with chemicals, trash, nitrogen pollution, and fish waste, and threatening local fishing communities, economies, and ways of life.

The lawsuit, filed in New York, alleges that Hannaford’s sustainability claims violate state consumer protection laws. The plaintiff is represented by FarmSTAND, the Center for Food Safety, and two law firms.

Read more about the allegations against Hannaford.