Fishing for sustainability
Sustainable fishing is a complicated issue and one on which many people's livelihoods depend. To guarantee that our fish is sourced responsibly we are continuing to extend our offer of Marine Stewardship Council certified fish. You can also rest assured that we are looking at all of our fish sources to ensure we only source from the most sustainable sources possible.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Or so goes the ancient proverb.
But in today's overexploited oceans it's not enough to just teach people to fish. They must be taught to fish sustainably. Otherwise fish could be off the menu for good.
200 million people world-wide earn all or part of their income through fishing or related industries. The diets of 2.6 billion people depend on fish as a source of animal protein.
The trouble is that not everything caught in a net makes it to the dinner table, and industrialised fishing often leaves a trail of marine destruction that can cause whole ecosystems to collapse.
In 1992, for example, some 30,000 Canadians suddenly found themselves jobless when cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland completely collapsed.
Up to 80% of some plaice catches in the North Sea are still thrown overboard dead or dying because they are too small or less valuable than the rest of the catch.
But not all forms of fishing are bad for the environment. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international charity set up to tackle the problem of overfishing. It has developed a voluntary international fishery certification programme and an eco-label for consumers.
One MSC certified mackerel fishery in Cornwall uses only hand lines to make their catch. Hand lines allow fishers to take younger mackerel and other fish species off the hooks and put them back in the water alive. This way juveniles and non-targeted species can continue to thrive, keeping stocks at a plentiful level.
We are committed to ensuring all our fresh and processed fish is MSC certified or equivalent and have been joint winner of the 'Marine Conservation Society's award for sustainable fish' two years running.
So you can be confident that any seafood you buy from our stores has been caught in an environmentally responsible manner.
In fact, the only thing fishy about our seafood is, well, the fish.
Click here to view our fish charter.
