Sustainable Fish Cities response to report on failures of Top UK restaurant chains fish sourcing
Many of the UK’s top restaurant chains serve unsustainable fish, and must improve to ensure our marine resources are protected. A study published today by the Marine Conservation Society and Fish2Fork found that Café Rouge, Harvester, Wagamama, Ask, Chiquito, Frankie & Benny’s and Bella Italia failed to meet even basic standards for sustainable fish sourcing.
The Sustainable Fish Cities campaign is calling on fish-serving businesses in 16 towns and cities in the UK to switch to 100% demonstrably sustainable options, and as part of the campaign, caterers serving over 500 million meals per year are committed to meeting standards far higher than many of the high street chains assessed.
Ruth Westcott, coordinator of Sustainable Fish Cities said “It is shocking that many of the high streets biggest names are falling so short of even basic sustainable fish standards. Thousands of schools, hospitals, workplaces and independent restaurants are doing much better, and the lack of transparency means that, in many cases, consumers wouldn’t even know that they are eating a fish from a stock which is at serious risk of collapse."
"We would like to see much stronger action from these restaurant chains. Serving sustainable fish isn’t difficult, thanks to the Marine Conservation Society’s ‘Fishonline’ rating system, as well as the Marine Stewardship Council and Aquaculture Stewardship Council, who provide scientifically-sound ecolabels to denote sustainable fish”.
Sustainable fish cities will be asking supporters, and all those concerned about the fish served by the UK’s biggest restaurant chains to take action. To find out more, please join our supporters list, and we will keep you in the loop.
More information about the places working to become Sustainable fish Cities, as well as the large caterers, restaurants and institutions that are taking action can be found on the Sustainable Fish Cities website
@FishCities
Published Wednesday 18 November 2015
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.
