December 18, 2014
Act: GrubHub, Take Shark Fin Off the Menu!
BY: Alex Gray
Shark and ocean lovers may want to think twice the next time they sit down with their computers or smartphones to order some takeout—shark fin could be on the menu.
Every day, thousands of people in more than 600 cities order food from tens of thousands of restaurants on GrubHub and its subsidiaries—Seamless, All Menus, and Menu Pages. Yet some of featured restaurants offer shark fin products on their menus.
These wildly popular online food ordering services wield significant market power, which is why we’re asking them to do the right thing and take shark fin products off the menu.
In November, Oceana emailed its Wavemakers asking them to sign our petition telling GrubHub to take shark fin off the menu. The company immediately responded that it would remove restaurants offering shark fin products in the nine states where it’s illegal to do so.
We applaud GrubHub’s progress, but encourage the company to take socially responsible action and remove shark fin products from all of its menus in the United States.
Up to 73 million sharks die each year as a result of shark finning to meet the demand for shark fin soup. Some shark populations have declined by as much as 99 percent in the last few decades due to overfishing—and threatened or endangered sharks are not immune.
Save for a few loopholes, shark finning is now illegal in U.S. waters and the possession and trade of shark fins is banned in nine states and three U.S. territories. But to truly make a difference for sharks, we need to take shark fin off every menu.
It’s time for GrubHub to hear from you. Oceana has already delivered more than 11,000 petition signatures to GrubHub, requesting the company drop shark fin from all menus they offer. But we need more people to sign our petition and use Facebook and Twitter to demand GrubHub take action.
Concerned ocean lovers like you have pressured corporations to change their ocean-hurting ways before. In 2012, nearly 40,000 Oceana Wavemakers demanded Alibaba.com remove manta ray products from their website. Alibaba listened and changed accordingly.
Companies including Disney, Amazon, Hilton, Marriott and the Starwood hotel group have already banned shark fin products. It’s time for GrubHub to get on-board.