The Grocer magazine has reported that there are mounting concerns in the fishing industry that the series of TV programmes to be shown soon on Channel 4 will spark a consumer backlash against salmon and tuna.
The three programmes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are to be aired on January 11 to 13 at 9pm and will cover the areas of discards, salmon farming and tuna. Hugh has not yet revealed the content of the programmes but did give a flavour of the likely areas of focus at the end of November. He said, after visiting a Shetland salmon farm, that Peruvian anchovy sucked up by enormous factory fish and then ground into powder was being shipped half way round the world and fed to 25,000 salmon in a Scottish loch before being shipped to a supermarket near you. He offered shoppers 300g of an oily fish in return for every 100g of salmon that they had bought. He told The Grocer that when consumers realise what’s at stake that they may be willing to make different choices. Around 40% of the fishmeal produced goes to feed pigs and poultry just as other fish is used to make the feed they give their cats. The Peruvian Government would like to see more consumption of anchovy but despite heavy promotion, local consumption rose from 20,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes. This still leaves well over four million tonnes without a human market. The fisheries are serviced by small and medium sized boats, not the factory ships that Hugh claims. He also mentioned that even though the harvest seems large, it is sustainable and still feeds the many forms of live that depend on the fishery for survival. Salmon farming is an easy target especially one which many consumers depend on as their only source of the oil rich fish that the Food Standards Agency recommend we eat. So far the industry response to these programmes is to hope that there will be an opportunity to release positive news stories to counter any claims made during the series.
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