Saving Seafood

Cod, pollock now included in EU discard ban

January 4, 2017 — The latest stage of the landing obligation, or “discard ban,” took effect on New Year’s Day, confirmed U.K. Fisheries Minister George Eustice, with the country’s fishermen now required to land cod and pollock.

U.K. government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said the discard ban has gradually introduced to allow time to adapt and that two species – North Sea cod and northwestern waters pollock – had joined the list of fish that must be landed. Existing bans for species such as sole, plaice and haddock have also been extended to include more vessels.

“Fishing sustainably is one of our biggest priorities, both now and for the future, and the discard ban is an incredibly important step to help us reach maximum sustainable yield by 2020,” said Eustice. “While there will always be challenges in adapting to new polices, ending the wasteful practice of throwing dead fish back overboard will not only help maintain stock levels, but will help create a profitable fishing industry for years to come.”

The latest phase of the landing obligation follows the implementation of the ban to pelagic species such as mackerel and blue whiting in 2015, and the extension to demersal species haddock, sole and plaice at the start of 2016.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Squid may become favourite UK meal as seas become warmer

December 13th, 2016 — Squid and fish that thrive in warmer waters, such as sardines and anchovies, are flourishing around the North Sea, according to fisheries data.

Squid are now being caught at 60% of survey stations in the North Sea, compared with 20% in the 1980s.

But the likes of cod are heading north, away from British waters.

Dr John Pinnegar, of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), which has been monitoring North Sea fish populations for more than 100 years, said models for 2025 and beyond suggested that seawater temperatures off the UK may continue to rise.

Fishing boats are now catching species that have not been caught in the area before.

Mediterranean alternatives

“Twenty or 30 years ago we hardly saw squid in our surveys,” he told BBC News.

Dr Pinnegar, programme director for marine climate change at Cefas, said summer squid fisheries had expanded around the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland, as part of efforts to reduce over-fishing of more traditional species such as haddock and cod.

“A lot of the things we see increasing in abundance around the UK are marine animals that would probably originally [be] thought of as being Mediterranean or characteristic of the Bay of Biscay, or around Portugal or Spain,” he added.

Read the full story at BBC News 

UK fishing federations adopt united stance on Brexit

November 30, 2016 — The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) have come to an agreement upon common principles for which they will jointly negotiate in upcoming talks on the terms of the United Kingdom’s separation from the European Union, also known as Brexit.

Following a meeting on 25 November in Edinburgh, Scotland, the two groups agreed on key outcomes they would like to achieve “to ensure the best possible deal for coastal communities in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations,” according to a press release.

“We see the UK’s departure from the E.U. and therefore the [Common Fisheries Policy] as an opportunity to address the distortions that were built into the CFP from its inception,” said Barrie Deas, chief executive of the NFFO, which represents a broad section of fishermen across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. “The U.K. industry is united that this is a once in a generation opportunity to put things right.”

Both organizations regard Brexit as an “historic opportunity,” as the U.K. regains full control of its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
At the meeting between the two federations, the two organizations agreed to fight against any roll-over of the current Common Fisheries Policy and against negotiations that entangle fisheries issues other matters not related to fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Britain’s fishing industry voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU — now it feels ‘betrayed’ by May’s Brexit proposals

November 8, 2016 — Britain’s £1-billion fishing industry, which voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, says it feels “betrayed” by the current course of Brexit negotiations.

A poll before the referendum suggested 92% of fishermen would vote to leave the EU, but many are now worried about Theresa May’s plan to roll over the EU’s much-maligned Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) into UK law.

The CFP sets rules for how many fish each EU country’s boats can land. Several politicians have warned that dropping the policy will not benefit the industry, but most fishermen disagreed, believing that its restrictions are the cause of a rapidly declining UK fleet.

But Prime Minister Theresa May intends to introduce a ‘Great Repeal Bill‘ in the wake of Brexit, which will roll over all EU law into UK law — including the CFP.

Alan Hastings, a spokesman for Brexit campaign group ‘Fishing For Leave,’ told Business Insider that the proposal risks “throwing the industry under a bus.”

Read the full story at Business Insider

How to Make Sure Your Fish Wasn’t Caught by Slaves

September 8, 2016 — For years, news outlets have been reporting on the systemic use of slavery in commercial fishing in places such as New Zealand and Thailand. With much of the industry’s byproduct ending up in the United States and Europe—according to a report in The Guardian, “The U.S., U.K., and E.U. are prime buyers of this seafood—with Americans buying half of all Thailand’s seafood exports and the U.K. alone consuming nearly 7 percent of all Thailand’s prawn exports.”—there’s a strong possibility that at some point, slave-caught fish has been served on a dinner plate near you. But thanks to blockchain, a technology best known as the basis for Bitcoin, soon there will be a new digital weapon to fight slave labor.

“We want to help support fish that is caught sustainably and verify these claims down the chain to help drive the market for slavery-free fish,” Provenance founder Jessi Baker told the Guardian. Provenance is an organization dedicated to socially responsible consumerism—it recently began piloting a blockchain program with the Co-Op Food group in the United Kingdom. “This pilot shows that complex, global supply chains can be made transparent by using blockchain technology.”

Currently, the only way to track the progress of seafood through the region’s supply chain is with paper records and tagged animals. According to the Guardian, the world’s biggest tuna exporter, the Thai Union, is all for utilizing blockchain technology. “Traceability—which allows us to prove that our fish is caught legally and sustainably and that safe labor conditions are met throughout the supply chain—is vital if we are to interest consumers in the source of their tuna,” the union’s director of sustainability Dr. Darian McBain told the paper.

Read the full story at Food & Wine

Hawaii and other big marine protected areas ‘could work against conservation’

September 6, 2016 — British and US marine scientists say that the race to designate ever-bigger marine national parks in remote parts of the world could work against conservation.

In an commentary timed to coincide with President Obama’s announcement of the huge extension of a marine park off Hawaii, the authors argue that the creation of very large marine protection areas (Vlmpas) may give the illusion of conservation, when in fact they may be little more than “paper parks”.

“It is not enough to simply cover the remotest parts of our oceans in notional ‘protection’ – we need to focus on seas closer to shore, where most of the fishing and drilling actually happens,” said Peter Jones, a marine researcher at University College London.

Co-author Elizabeth de Santo, an assistant professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, added that the push for quantity over quality threatens to undermine sustainability.

“There are concerns that marine conservation aims could be undermined by this focus on a few big areas. The marine biodiversity target is about much more than the proportion of the seas that are covered,” she said.

In the past five years over 20 huge new marine parks have been designated by countries, including Britain, in response to calls by marine scientists to protect more of the oceans.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Thai Union takes steps to end slavery in its supply chain

June 23, 2016 — In the past week, Thai Union published a Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement and hosted a meeting with leaders of the Migrant Worker Rights Network, as part of the company’s efforts to address slavery and human rights abuses in its supply chain.

The statement, published in support of the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015, outlines the activities undertaken by the company to eliminate slavery and human trafficking from its business operations.

According to the report, Thai Union has terminated relationships with 17 suppliers as a result of forced labor or human trafficking violations since the start of 2015. The company also revealed that in 2015, “two serious issues of forced labor were uncovered within the Thai Union supply chain.”

“Thai Union worked with local NGOs, the Issara Institute and Migrant Workers Rights Network to provide humanitarian aid to workers, full compensation of lost benefits, and offers for safe and legal employment within Thai Union factories,” the report said. “Thai Union is committed to demonstrating full transparency and traceability in our supply chain. All supply chains are in the process of being mapped to source, and audited for compliance with quality and labor standards.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

From Ocean to Plate: Ensuring Traceable Supply Chain in the Seafood Industry

May 18, 2016 — In 2013, the ‘horsemeat scandal’ sent tremors through the European food industry. The fraudulent replacement of beef with cheaper equine alternatives in burgers and convenience food left consumers and retailers reeling, alarmed that they had fallen victim to the largest food fraud in decades.

The scandal not only highlighted the shortcuts being made by food manufacturers in their attempts to compete for the lowest price, it emphasized the complexity of global food supply chains and the challenges in monitoring every step. Almost overnight, the importance of traceability—the ability to track any food through all stages of production, processing and distribution—became high on public and political agendas.

‘Food scandals’ can leave consumers feeling duped, misled and distrustful of retailers and brands. They can also lead to people eating foods that violate their religious or moral values; or worse still   have impacts on their health.

Recognizing the negative impacts of incorrect labelling, governments around the world have responded. The Food Standards Agency in the UK, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority and Food Standards Australia New Zealand, to name a few, commit extensive resources to ensuring the safety and correct labelling of our food. But the problem persists—and responsibility is often laid at the feet of food suppliers.

Read the full story at Food Safety Magazine

Putting seafood’s best foot forward

August 19, 2015 — Deck to Dinner, a new initiative launched in the United Kingdom last week, aims to repair damage done by years of ignorant information printed in the media, which have given the seafood industry a poor reputation according to Barry Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations (NFFO).

Inspiration for the initiative comes in the form of data from a survey by Research Now, which reveals that despite two thirds of us now eating fish once a week and supermarkets reporting increases in wet fish sales, 90 percent of people are only comfortable cooking familiar fish that is pre-prepared.

Deck to Dinner also builds on the latest research from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which shows there has been a “dramatic reduction in fishing pressure” across North Atlantic commercial fish stocks as a result of strict management plans. The data show that between 2006 and 2015, the number of stocks fished at Maximum Sustainable Yield, which is seen as the gold standard of sustainability, increased from two to 36.

“We have been working with chefs for a while now, asking them to create recipes using underutilized species of sustainably sourced seafood, to prove they are just as versatile as the seafood staples. The aim is to get the media and the public to understand that there are sustainable and tasty alternatives to eating salmon, cod, haddock, tuna and prawns, which account for over 70 percent of all U.K. seafood sales,” explained Deas.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com