As part of its Green Wave program national food service provider Aramark contacted the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2006 for advice on its seafood purchases. "We’ve been talking ever since about the details of this partnership to take sustainable seafood company-wide in the United States," says Ken Peterson, a spokesman for the Aquarium.

The partnership focuses on sustainable seafood purchases and could have far-reaching implications for the seafood industry, particularly in the United States where the company employs 180,000 people and stocks the cafeterias of thousands of corporate and university cafeterias.

Since 1999, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative has made recommendations to seafood consumers and suppliers about which seafood to buy and which to avoid with the ultimate goal of protecting marine habitats and transforming the seafood market. The Aramark partnership is the latest in a string of partnerships between the Aquarium and major seafood distributors, including Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Wegman's.