The Promise on the Package

Every can and pouch of Target’s Good & Gather tuna carried the same guarantee. Front of label, impossible to miss: “Sustainably Caught.” The back reinforced it: “wild caught using sustainable practices to help protect ocean resources for future generations to enjoy.” A blue MSC certification stamp completed the image of corporate responsibility.

Sue Kim saw that label in June 2025 at a Target store in Cerritos, California. She paid $0.99 for chunk light tuna in water and $1.99 for albacore. She read the packaging. She believed the promise. She made the purchase because she wanted to avoid participating in the destruction of marine ecosystems. According to the federal class action complaint filed March 18, 2026, Target knew the promise was false.

“Target engaged in a uniform advertising campaign to market itself as a sustainable food manufacturer, acknowledging sustainability as a purchase driver when selling seafood in a market composed of health and environmentally conscious consumers.”

The campaign was not accidental. Amanda Nusz, Target’s senior vice president of corporate responsibility, stated on the record: “We want guests to think of Target first when they think of sustainability.” When rolling out the “Target Forward” sustainability initiative in 2021, Nusz emphasized that “sustainability is part of Target’s origin story.” Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell added that “sustainability is tied to business resiliency and growth, and our size and scale can drive change that is good for all.”

The legal complaint alleges that this marketed commitment to ocean health was a lie designed to extract price premiums from consumers who were never told that the fish came from industrial operations using fishing methods responsible for catastrophic levels of marine mammal and sea turtle mortality.

What “Sustainably Caught” Actually Looked Like

Target’s Good & Gather tuna products are sourced through MSC code MSC-C-53198, which traces to The Tuna Store LLC, a subsidiary of Tri Marine Group, which is owned by the Bolton Group, a massive Italian fishing conglomerate. Greenpeace has issued multiple reports documenting the Bolton Group’s failure to meet its own marketed sustainability standards.

The fishing methods used are purse seines for the chunk light tuna and longlines for the albacore. The legal complaint describes in detail what these methods do:

Purse Seines

A purse seine is a net that can stretch up to a mile in diameter and hang 650 feet deep. It encircles an entire school of fish. The bottom is drawn tight like a drawstring bag. Everything inside is hauled onto the boat or dragged alongside. The complaint states: “Once a purse seiner is set, all marine life within the net is captured, including marine mammals and sea turtles. These non-target species are called bycatch. Most marine life in the purse seiner is crushed by the weight of other catch that has accumulated on top of them.”

Dolphins are among the most frequent bycatch victims. The complaint continues: “The suffocation and crushing of dolphins caught in fishing nets that are then hauled onto fishing boats while severely injured or dead.” Seals and sharks are also caught and killed. The injured or dead animals are typically thrown back into the ocean as waste.

Longlines

A longline is a heavy-duty fishing line that can stretch for miles with thousands of baited hooks. The complaint describes the impact: “The torturously slow death of endangered sea turtles after getting caught on large hooks meant for haddock.” Loggerhead and leatherback turtles, both endangered species, drown on these lines. The hooks catch juvenile tuna, sharks, and other non-target species. The mortality rate for longline bycatch that is caught and discarded can reach 50%.

The complaint also references whale entanglement: “The entangling of critically endangered whales by fishing gear causing deep wounds and intense suffering.” Expert Kate O’Connell of the Animal Welfare Institute is quoted: “We’re talking millions of lines, placed in the water every year. These animals are running the gauntlet—and it’s getting harder and harder for them to survive.” The complaint notes that over a right whale’s lifetime, 85% are expected to become entangled in fishing gear.

The Numbers Target Didn’t Put on the Label

The complaint emphasizes that these figures are likely underestimates. “Commercial fishermen are incentivized to underreport bycatch, which is facilitated by rampant lack of accountability and widespread unreliable reporting on bycatch. In fact, in 2005, less than half of the fishing vessels around the world recorded quantitative statistics on annual bycatch.”

Even MSC’s own advisory council members have raised alarms. Rory Crawford of BirdLife International conducted a 2019 study of twenty-three MSC-certified fisheries and found that only three were actively working to monitor and minimize bycatch. His conclusion: “Consumers cannot be fully confident that certified fish comes without impacts on non-target species, from sharks to seabirds to whales.”

The Certification That Certified Nothing

The Marine Stewardship Council is a for-profit organization. It charges fisheries between $20,000 and $100,000 to undergo certification assessments. Once certified, it charges retailers like Target a royalty starting at 0.5% of the net wholesale value of all MSC-labeled seafood sold. Approximately 80% of MSC’s revenue comes from licensing fees. The complaint states bluntly: “The more fish and seafood that the MSC’s customers sell, the more money the MSC earns.”

Despite this financial incentive to approve as many fisheries as possible, MSC markets itself as a rigorous sustainability standard. Its three core principles are:

• “Fishing must be at a level that ensures it can continue indefinitely and the fish population can remain productive and healthy.”
• “Fishing activity must be managed carefully so that other species and habitats within the ecosystem remain healthy.”
• “Fisheries must comply with relevant laws and be able to adapt to changing environmental circumstances.”

The complaint alleges that the only fishing techniques actually disqualified from MSC certification are “fishing with poisons or explosives.” Purse seines and longlines, despite their documented harm, are approved. The result, according to numerous experts cited in the complaint, is that MSC certification has become meaningless.

“I will go as far as to say consumers are being duped. They think they are buying fish that are sustainable and can eat them with a clean conscience.” — Richard Page, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner

Gerry Leape, an ocean specialist at the Pew Environment Group who served on MSC’s advisory Stakeholder Council for over a decade, stated: “We would prefer they didn’t use the word sustainable.” He and other critics say MSC has been certifying fisheries despite evidence that fish stocks are in trouble or that the fishing is harming the environment.

The complaint details another layer of the problem: observer interference and bribery. The fisheries are supposed to have independent observers on board to monitor and report bycatch and other violations. However, a May 2022 report titled “Slipping Through the Net, Reported but Ignored: Infringements in the MSC Tuna Fisheries of the Western and Central Pacific” documented that observers’ reports about bycatch, shark finning, and observer bribery are systematically ignored. Photographic evidence included images of shark finning, whale shark captures, and marine animals being butchered alive in nets.

The Association for Professional Observers issued an open letter in 2016 stating: “Broad assessments are made that a fishery is sustainable if it is MSC certified or has some other eco-label. This is a public deception. To us, these milestones are a complete farce because there are no observer protections embedded in the requirements of any eco-certification. Furthermore, they mean nothing without transparency of observer reports and continual public oversight.”

The Non-Financial Ledger

The legal case is about money—price premiums, unjust enrichment, restitution. But the complaint makes clear that the financial harm to consumers is a proxy for a deeper betrayal. The plaintiffs paid extra because they were trying to do the right thing. They were sold the promise that their purchases would “protect ocean resources for future generations.” Instead, they were deceived into funding the very destruction they were attempting to prevent.

The complaint states: “By failing to disclose that its Tuna Products are unsustainably caught through use of fishing methods that harm ocean habitats and marine life, and representing that the Tuna Products are sustainably caught, Target induced reasonable consumers, including Plaintiff and Class members, to become unwitting participants in the very environmental crisis Plaintiff and Class members attempt to avoid by purchasing and paying a premium for Target’s Tuna Products.”

Sue Kim wanted to buy tuna that didn’t involve the suffocation of dolphins or the slow drowning of endangered sea turtles. She paid $0.99 and $1.99. She read the label. She trusted the certification. She did everything a reasonable consumer is expected to do. And according to the allegations in this lawsuit, every promise on that label was a lie.

The non-financial ledger is written in the bodies of marine animals killed by methods Target certified as sustainable. Dolphins crushed under the weight of a collapsing net. Leatherback turtles hooked and drowned. Right whales entangled in gear, bearing deep wounds until they die of infection or starvation. The complaint does not ask the court to quantify this suffering in dollar terms. It simply asks that Target be prohibited from lying about it.

Legal Receipts

The complaint is built on a foundation of verbatim admissions and documented contradictions. Target’s own public statements are used as evidence of knowledge and intent.

“Target recognizes that traceability in seafood supply chains is important for verifying that our seafood comes from sources that meet our sustainable seafood commitment. Target works towards industry best practices for traceability.” — Target Corporate Website, Commitment to Sustainable Seafood

The complaint contrasts this promise with Target’s admission elsewhere on the same website that it lacks effective traceability: “At-sea transshipment is a common practice in tuna fisheries often used for the purpose of increasing the operational efficiency of fishing by reducing fuel and supply costs. While a legal practice, it can hide unsustainable, unethical or illegal activities such as overfishing or labor abuses. Transshipment often occurs in the waters of developing coastal states or on the high seas where there is little capacity for monitoring and oversight, further elevating the risks.”

In other words: Target admits it cannot monitor what happens at sea, admits the risk of illegal and unethical activity, and yet markets the final product as “sustainably caught” with full traceability.

Another key quote comes from Target’s 2024 Sustainability and Governance Report, authored by Agata Ramallo Garcia, vice president and head of enterprise sustainability: “We’re applying decades of design expertise to reduce waste and meet growing consumer interest in more sustainable choices that don’t sacrifice the value, quality, newness and joyful experience they expect from Target. We’re activating an omnichannel experience to celebrate sustainable brands with our guests—and hear directly from them on ways we can continue to evolve our product offerings.”

The complaint treats this as an admission that Target’s sustainability marketing is designed to “meet consumer interest” and create a “joyful experience,” not to ensure that the products are actually sustainable.

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

The complaint cites the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s finding that the number of overfished stocks globally has tripled in the last fifty years, with one-third of the world’s assessed fisheries now pushed beyond their biological limits. Ghost gear—abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing equipment—is identified as “the deadliest form of plastic in the ocean,” greatly impacting whales, dolphins, sharks, and sea turtles. The fisheries supplying Target are not required to implement effective ghost gear mitigation strategies.

Purse seines and longlines are non-selective by design. They do not distinguish between target species and endangered bystanders. The complaint notes that reasonable consumers understand “seafood to be sustainably caught if the fishing methods utilized do not harm the marine ecosystem and promote marine health.” The methods described in the legal filings indisputably do the opposite.

Public Health

The complaint does not allege direct public health harm from consuming the tuna itself. The harm is reputational and psychological: consumers who purchased these products believing they were making ethical, environmentally responsible choices now know—if the allegations are proven—that they were deceived. The FTC Green Guides are cited to establish that consumers associate the term “sustainable” with environmental preservation (80%) and animal welfare (76%). The betrayal of that expectation is framed as a dignitary injury, not a physical one.

Economic Inequality

The lawsuit is structured as an economic fraud claim. The plaintiffs allege they paid a price premium for a promised attribute (sustainability) that the product did not possess. The complaint states: “Target is able to charge a premium for its Tuna Products as a result of its sustainable seafood marketing campaign.” Had the true fishing methods been disclosed, “Plaintiff and Class members would not have purchased the Tuna Products or would have paid less for the Tuna Products.”

This dynamic creates a regressive wealth transfer. Consumers who care enough about ocean health to pay extra are effectively taxed for their ethics, while the premium revenue flows to a corporation that invested nothing in the promised sustainability. The complaint emphasizes that 88% of Americans—and 93% of millennials—report a willingness to pay more for sustainable seafood, making this a lucrative deception.

What Now?

The lawsuit names Target Corporation as the sole defendant. It does not name the Marine Stewardship Council, the Bolton Group, Tri Marine, or The Tuna Store LLC, though all are discussed extensively in the factual allegations. The case was filed March 18, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, as Case No. 2:26-cv-02910.

Plaintiff Sue Kim is represented by Pearson Warshaw, LLP and Jennings & Earley, PLLC. The complaint seeks class certification on behalf of all persons who purchased Good & Gather tuna products in California or other states with similar consumer protection laws during the applicable statute of limitations period. The requested relief includes injunctive relief (a court order prohibiting Target from continuing the alleged misrepresentations), restitution, compensatory damages, punitive damages, treble damages under applicable state statutes, and attorneys’ fees.

Pursuant to California Civil Code § 1782, the plaintiff sent Target a pre-suit notice letter on August 4, 2025, demanding that the company rectify its conduct on a class-wide basis. The filing of this lawsuit indicates that Target did not comply with that demand.

Regulatory Watchlist

The following agencies have jurisdiction over the conduct alleged in this complaint:

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): Enforces truth-in-advertising laws and the Green Guides governing environmental marketing claims.
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Regulates commercial fishing practices, bycatch, and marine mammal protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): Oversees seafood labeling accuracy under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
• California Attorney General’s Office: Enforces state consumer protection statutes including the Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

None of these agencies are parties to this lawsuit. However, the legal claims are predicated on violations of laws these agencies enforce, meaning a favorable judgment for the plaintiffs could trigger regulatory scrutiny or enforcement actions.

What You Can Do

If you purchased Target’s Good & Gather tuna products during the class period and believed the sustainability representations, you may be a class member. You do not need to take action now; if the class is certified, you will be notified. Monitor court filings in Case No. 2:26-cv-02910 for updates.

If you want to buy truly sustainable seafood, the complaint suggests that MSC certification is not a reliable indicator. Independent sustainability guides like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch or the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide provide alternative assessments not funded by industry royalties.

More broadly: demand supply chain transparency. Retailers like Target claim to have “full traceability,” but as this lawsuit alleges, those claims can be false. Support regulatory reforms that require independent, third-party verification of sustainability claims, protection for fishery observers from interference and retaliation, and public disclosure of bycatch data.

And if a corporation tells you that your $0.99 purchase will “protect ocean resources for future generations,” ask them to prove it.