ISS Education pledge to ensure a future full of fish
ISS Education[1] have become the latest caterer to sign the Sustainable Fish City pledge – committing to a series of steps which will ensure all the fish they serve to thousands of school and college pupils is sustainably sourced, and therefore helps to protect our precious marine ecosystems.
A number of steps have already been taken by ISS Education to start to switch to sustainable fish and fulfil the pledge, including eliminating species considered 'Fish to Avoid' by the Marine Conservation Society in schools which have achieved the Food For Life Catering Marks[2]. But this new announcement means that all the fish they serve will now meet these important standards.
The Sustainable Fish City campaign is now active in 13 towns and cities across the UK, as part of the Sustainable Food Cities network[3], supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Each city has been challenged to gather pledges from caterers in their area, in a bid to become the world’s first Sustainable Fish City, with ISS's pledge helping towards the London and Bristol campaigns. The pledge comes less than a month after the UK Government released recommendations that schools should serve sustainable fish as part of the new School Food Standards, which come into force in January 2015[4].
Ruth Westcott, co-ordinator of Sustainable Fish Cities said “Sustainable fish is a hugely important issue - and we are seeing that reflected in the Government's position in the School Food Standards, as well as the fact that 13 towns and cities across the UK are now taking up campaigns to transform the way that fish is served across their area. By taking this step, ISS Education are showing real leadership - they have taken many steps towards implementing the pledge already, and it is hugely exciting to have ISS Education on board”.
Sarah Henderson, Food for Life Co-ordinator for ISS Education, said “As a specialist school caterer, we recognise that we have a real responsibility to ensure that we are protecting fish stocks so that future generations of school children can enjoy fish. We are on a journey to a fully sustainable fish policy - it's what we believe in as a company, and we are delighted to be helping to create sustainable fish cities in the UK”.
Press contact: Ruth Westcott on 0203 5596 777 or ruth@sustainweb.org
Notes
[1] ISS Education is a subsidiary of ISS UK, which employs over 47,000 people in the UK and operates catering in business and industry, healthcare and fine dining. In 2011 ISS Food and Hospitality became one of the first caterers to sign the Fish City pledge.
[2] A full list of these is available here http://www.sacert.org/catering/schoolcaterers
[4] The revised school food standards are available here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-food
Published Wednesday 27 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.
