Princes’ IPO needs to be FAD-free

Not just a significant source of ecological damage, FAD-caught tuna represents a financial and legal risk for investors in Princes’ IPO, who should ask the company to reinstate its previous commitment to not source FAD-caught tuna.

A tuna IPO in London

Princes Group is preparing for its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange, with trading expected to commence on November 5th at an estimated valuation of £1.2 billion. The Liverpool-based food and beverage company, known for its Princes tuna brand alongside Napolina, Branston, and Flora, generated £2.1 billion in revenue in 2024.

Fish represents 19% of Princes’ revenue, with an operating margin of 3.0%, twice the group’s margin. While the exact percentage of tuna sales is not publicly disclosed, we estimate it at about 10% of sales. Within the Fish division, tuna is likely to be more profitable given its processing facilities’ very high utilisation rates and dominant market shares, and grows faster (1.1.% vs 0.6% 5-year CAGR to May 2025).

Even though about 87% of the total global tuna catch comes from healthy stocks in terms of abundance, tuna biomass levels have significantly declined since their pre-fished levels, and all of the species sold by Princes are seeing decreasing trends in their populations as per the IUCN.

Sustainability challenge: MSC certification is not enough

To the untrained eye, Princes’ seafood sustainability credentials appear robust. The company has committed to sourcing 100% MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified tuna by 2025 and achieved its 2021 goal of sourcing all branded tuna from either MSC-certified fisheries or Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs).

However, MSC certification alone does not guarantee sustainability. Recent research reveals that more than half of tuna certified as sustainable by MSC comes from fisheries that rely on fish aggregating devices (FADs). Princes sells certified skipjack, yellowfin, albacore and bigeye tuna (the latter being overfished in the Indian Ocean and classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN, meaning it is a threatened species.) Analysis of the tuna fisheries that Princes sources from shows that most but not all of these are caught with drifting fish aggregating devices (FADs).

The FAD problem: how a key source of environmental damage might affect Princes’ future volumes

As per Planet Tracker’s recent deep dive in the tuna industry, drifting FADs represent one of the most contentious issues in modern tuna fishing. There are several critical problems with drifting FADs¹:

• enormous footprint: between 2007 and 2021, an estimated 1.41 million drifting FADs were deployed globally, drifting across 134 million square kilometers (37% of Earth’s ocean surface, or 104 maritime jurisdictions).
• juvenile overfishing: FADs attract juvenile tuna before they have had the opportunity to breed, undermining stock sustainability (and impacting long term revenue). 97% of the yellowfin tuna caught around drifting FADs in the Indian Ocean are juveniles.
• high bycatch rates: FAD-associated fishing results in significantly higher bycatch than free-school fishing, particularly affecting threatened species such as sharks, rays, and sea turtles. Studies show shark mortality rates can exceed 80% in some tuna fisheries working with drifting FADs.
• marine pollution: only an estimated 10% of deployed FADs are ever retrieved. The remainder become ghost gear, polluting oceans with plastic nets, ropes, and electronic equipment while continuing to entangle marine life for years. Princes “supports work to move drifting FADs to biodegradable materials”.
• ecosystem disruption: scientists suggest FADs may act as “ecological traps,” luring fish into nutrient-poor areas and potentially altering natural tuna behaviour, migration patterns, and feeding habits.

Despite this damage, the tuna fishing industry generally opposes a reduction of the use of FADs due to the perceived impact on profitability. A recent paper showed that the successful fishing rate of FADs fishing is 15% pts higher than for free school (at 95.7% vs 80.6%), but FAD fishing is 24% more fuel intensive than free school fishing for tropical tuna purse seiners. This means that as fuel prices rise – for instance but not only by becoming less subsidised-, any (perceived) profitability advantage will subside.

Still, several actors along the supply chain have taken steps to reduce their exposure to drifting FADs. In the UK, M&S has emerged as the only supermarket ensuring all its tuna products are line-caught and drifting FAD-free. The retailer explicitly states that “100% of all tuna species sourced and sold by M&S are caught by line caught methods only. None of these line capture methods use drifting FADs“.

If other major UK retailers (such as Tesco or Sainsbury’s), which count among Princes’ major clients follow M&S’s lead, Princes could face a substantial volume drop. This is a key financial risk from the perspective of Princes, since Blue Marine Foundation research found that Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and the Co-op have already banned drifting FAD-caught tuna from their own-label products (even though they continue selling brand-name tuna like Princes that source from fleets using FADs). Private label tuna such as M&S’s tuna account for 57% of the tuna market, as per Princes, whose exposure to private label is even higher (66%) in fish. 70% of the group’s fish sales come from large food retailers.

Princes’ exposure to FADs

Princes previously committed to stopping the sale of tuna caught with FADs following a campaign by Greenpeace in 2011, before backtracking in 2014.

Quantifying its exposure to FADs is difficult, since it is not disclosed. We do know that not all of its tuna is caught with FADs, since Princes’ supplies tuna for M&S’ own brand, which is FAD-free, and since its sourcing guide highlights its FAD-free tuna, e.g. : “In 2022 all Princes branded tuna was Responsibly Sourced coming from either a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fishery or a well managed pole & line or purse seine FAD free fishery.”

The table below helps the reader assess the proportion of Princes coming from fisheries using FADs. According to the IPO prospectus, Princes’ key suppliers are European fishing companies (in bold in the table below). Further information on the large suppliers listed (which are part of the Tuna 30, the largest 30 tuna fishing companies globally) can be accessed in Planet Tracker’s Tuna Turner report, or the accompanying dashboard.

Based on the above, assuming proportional sourcing from each fishery and based on a minimum and maximum estimate of the use of FADs in each of the fisheries that use them, between 30% and 90% of Princes’ tuna is likely to be FAD-caught, representing 3% to 9% of group sales. It is in the interest of investors in Princes to know that number.

Legal, regulatory, compliance and reputational risks

This is especially the case since a landmark European Court of Justice ruling in July 2025 sided with environmental NGOs, challenging the EU’s decision to block measures protecting Indian Ocean tuna stocks from the harm caused by drifting FADs. The court found that the EU had “actively blocked” measures for stronger fish stock protection, stating that such decisions must be open to legal scrutiny as they could undermine EU environmental policy objectives.

This legal victory is intensifying pressure on retailers and suppliers to eliminate FAD-caught tuna from their supply chains. It also creates multiple risks for Princes:

• Supply chain disruption: Potential bans or restrictions on drifting FAD-caught tuna could force costly supply chain restructuring.

• Compliance costs: increased monitoring and certification requirements may drive up operational expenses.

• Litigation risk: the legal precedent opens doors for future challenges against companies sourcing from environmentally harmful fishing practices.

• Reputational damage: growing consumer awareness of drifting FAD issues could lead to boycotts or brand damage.

Call for action

It is in the interest of Princes’ prospective investors to be provided with comprehensive disclosure including:

• Species-specific sourcing data: Clear breakdown of tuna volumes by species, sourcing areas, and catch methods. This will allow investors to quantify their potential exposure to seafood sustainability risks, which are local-, species- and gear-specific.

• FAD dependency metrics: Percentage of supply sourced from FAD-associated fisheries versus free-school or line-caught methods. This will allow investors to quantify their exposure to drifting FADs.

Princes already “supports improved FAD management including numbers of FADs, supply vessels, registration and also closures where there is verified data to demonstrate that would be effective in improving stock health. [Princes is] also supportive, of the deployment of non-entangling FADs – that are now required throughout our purse seine supply chain – and ongoing research into biodegradable FADs.”

We encourage the group to be even more ambitious, by releasing a time-bound plan to reduce FAD dependency, including:

• Adherence to minimum standards: implementation of Minimum responsible drifting FAD use requirements where elimination is not immediately feasible. These requirements cover the construction, operation, ownership, retrieval of drifting FADs and were endorsed by multiple major NGOs, as well as Sainsbury’s.

• Transition timeline: clear milestones for reducing and eventually eliminating drifting FAD-sourced tuna where possible

• Alternative sourcing: investment in pole-and-line, free-school, and other more sustainable fishing methods.

• Supply chain diversification: reduced dependence on Indian Ocean sources where drifting FAD issues are most acute.