Belfast achieves its first Sustainable Fish Star
Belfast has taken the first step towards becoming a Sustainable Fish City, by achieving its first star in the 5-star award system. The campaign is being organised by Belfast Food Network[1], which secured its star by persuading six popular restaurants to move towards using only sustainable fish; in addition, the group held a seafood tasting event outside Belfast’s iconic City Hall.
Belfast Food Network is taking part in the UK-wide Sustainable Food Cities project[2], working to transform the food culture of towns and cities across the country, supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Belfast has already secured the support of the Lord Mayor of Belfast, the council, businesses and conservation organisations to work on improving food in the city. It is only the third city to achieve a Fish City star[3].
Pledges have been secured from Belfast restaurants, Made in Belfast, Mourne Seafood, Ginger Bistro and the John Hewitt pub, as well as the hugely successful tourist venue, Titanic Belfast and Slow Food Northern Ireland. Kerry Melville, co-ordinator of the Belfast Food Network, said ‘We’d like to offer our congratulations to the businesses that have signed the Fish Cities pledge so far, and allowed us to achieve this first star. We’d especially like to thank Mourne Seafood, which cooked delicious scallops, pollock and gurnard for our sustainable fish tasting event, allowing the public to try some alternative sustainable fish species. To achieve the next four stars we need to gather pledges from hospitals, universities, workplaces and the local authority – so please help us!’
Ruth Westcott, co-ordinator of the Sustainable Fish City campaign at Sustain, said ‘This is a brilliant achievement. Some truly iconic businesses have taken the fish pledge in Belfast so far; top restaurants, pubs and cafés, showing that sustainable fish is something every type of business can use. We now want to invite the two universities and Belfast City Council to follow their lead, so we can see Belfast transformed into a city which is ensuring a sustainable future for our precious marine resources”.
Press contact: Ruth Westcott on 0203 5596 777 or ruth@sustainweb.org
[1] Belfast Food Network is a not-for-profit organisation, which promotes and develops good food in Belfast through active, meaningful partnerships between public, private and community networks.
[2] Find out more about Sustainable Food Cities here: http://sustainablefoodcities.org/
[3] You can track the progress of Belfast, and the other cities working towards Sustainable Fish City status here: https://www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefishcity/whos_working_on_it/
Published Thursday 21 August 2014
Sustainable Fish: A campaign to protect precious marine environments and fishing livelihoods, and call for fish to be bought from sustainable sources. We want to show what can be done if people and organisations make a concerted effort to change their buying habits.
