M&J Seafood makes sustainable seafood choices easy

M&J Seafood has joined forces with the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to provide a first for the food service industry by publishing a comprehensive guide to seafood products from the most responsible and certified sustainable sources. 

M&J Seafood’s Safely Sourced Seafood List is a groundbreaking initiative, the first of its kind to provide a one-stop solution for the growing number of caterers looking to serve sustainable products. Over 300 fresh, frozen and chilled responsibly sourced fish and/or seafood lines supplied by M&J Seafood are included on the list, which is underpinned by the two leading marine conservation charities, MCS and MSC.

 The idea behind the project is that it will empower the fast-growing number of chefs looking to offer responsible menu choices, making it easy for them to be part of the UK’s top restaurant sustainability initiatives - Fish2fork, Sustainable Fish Cities, Sustainable Restaurant Association and Food for Life.

Compiled by M&J Seafood, with a commitment to undergo an annual third party traceability audit, the List features fish and seafood that are rated 1 to 3 by the MCS, or certified sustainable to the MSC’s environmental standard. This means that the caterer can easily choose, and be reassured that the products they buy are from source fisheries and farms that present a low risk of having a damaging and long lasting impact on the marine environment.

“For us, making sound choices is not just a matter of doing the right thing for the future of our seas; it’s about doing the right thing for our customers and their customers,” explains M&J Seafood’s Director of Fish & Seafood, Mike Berthet. “We are totally committed to keeping a close eye on the world’s fish stocks and sustainable practices, and to supplying the best of the world’s catch from well-managed fisheries and farms.  That is why we have decided to take a two-pronged approach, demonstrating our commitment to this important issue while creating a constantly updated list of safely sourced seafood to help our customers make informed menu decisions. We have made it easy for caterers to bring sustainable choices to the menu so that we can all play our part in this significant global issue.”

Ruth Westcott, Sustainable Fish Cities officer, says: “We are delighted to see M&J taking this step. Lots of chefs are concerned that switching to sustainable fish will restrict their menu choices, but here we see that there are loads of exciting options for chefs, including white fish, shellfish and oily fish. This list is essentially taking the hard work out of meeting the sustainable fish city pledge, and we expect that lots more restaurants and caters will now be signing the pledge.”

Samuel Stone, MCS Fisheries Officer, says: “Sourcing sustainable seafood can be complicated. Seafood is one of the most internationally traded commodities and there is a range of factors to consider, depending on how and where the seafood was caught or farmed. This complexity has been a major hurdle, preventing restaurants making sustainable seafood choices.  This new collaborative initiative encompasses advice and recommendations from the leading UK environmental charities working with the sector, and makes it simple for any business to source seafood from the most responsible or certified sustainable sources. Ultimately, demand for sustainable seafood will pay dividends for both the seafood industry and the marine environment.” 

George Clark, MSC UK Commercial Manager, says: “As a former chef it’s fantastic to see such a positive step being taken by M&J Seafood in pro-actively encouraging and enabling chefs and restaurateurs to source sustainable fish and seafood. It’s sometimes a struggle to navigate all the advice out there and make the right sustainable decisions for your menu. With M&J Seafood’s Safely Sourced Seafood List all the hard work has been done for you and with the range of MSC products on the list it’s a great way to get the MSC eco-label on your menu too.”

For more information on the Safely Sourced Seafood List please visit www.mjseafood.com/safelysourced

- Ends -

Editor’s notes:

M&J Seafood

Press contact: Dunk Ink, Ravenswood, Hanging Birch Lane, Horam, East Sussex TN21 0BH.

Tel: 01435 813557. Contact: Simon Smith.

M&J Seafood was established over 30 years ago and has grown to become the UK’s leading independent seafood supplier. It is now a member of European foodservice business, the Brakes Group. The combination of local branches and Britain's largest range of fresh, frozen and chilled seafood products enables M&J Seafood to offer a first-class local service to more than 13,000 chefs nationwide. M&J Seafood’s local and international buyers source the best of the British and international catch providing chefs with the largest range of fresh, frozen and chilled seafood in the UK. Working in partnership with Skipper’s Catch, M&J Seafood buys direct from local fishermen to ensure the customer gets the freshest catch as quickly as possible. Based in ports around the British coastline the Skipper’s Catch team use their years of experience and seasoned relationships with skippers to keep up to date with who’s caught what and where. With this knowledge they select the finest fish and seafood landed each morning and before dawn let every M&J Seafood branch in the country know what they have secured.

Marine Conservation Society

Tel: 01989 566 017. Contact: Katherine Stephenson

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is the UK charity dedicated to protecting our seas, shores and wildlife. MCS campaigns for clean seas and beaches, sustainable fisheries, and protection of marine life. Through education, community involvement and collaboration, MCS raises awareness of the many threats that face our seas and promotes individual, industry and government action to protect the marine environment. MCS provides information and guidance on many aspects of marine conservation and produces the annual Good Beach Guide, the Good Fish Guide and FishOnline on sustainable seafood, as well as involving thousands of volunteers in projects and surveys such as MCS Beachwatch. www.mcsuk.org.

MCS Sustainable Seafood Ratings are generated by assessing the relative health of each fish stock, and the sustainability of the various fishing methods used. A rating of 5 (Fish to Avoid) is given to those fish that MCS recommends be avoided because they are overfished; vulnerable to exploitation; poorly managed; and whose method of harvesting causes bycatch (capture of dolphins, sharks, seabirds and non-target fish) and/or damage to the seabed. A rating of 1 and 2 (Fish to Eat) is awarded to the most sustainably harvested seafood including fish from certified fisheries. Ratings 3 and 4 indicate increasing levels of concern regarding the status of the fish stock, or the environmental impact of the fishing method used to catch them.

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

Tel: 0207 346 8913. Contact: James Simpson

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organisation that certifies sustainable fisheries and operates the only globally recognised labelling programme for sustainable seafood. Its vision is of the world's oceans teeming with life, and seafood safeguarded for this and future generations. The MSC aims to achieve this through our credible science-based standards for sustainable fishing and seafood traceability.

Since 1997, the MSC has certified more than 220 fisheries and established the ecolabel to encourage sustainable wild-capture fishing practices and increase consumer awareness. The blue MSC ecolabel now appears on more than 23,000 products sold in around 100 countries. In 2012, MSC eco-labelled fish was served to athletes at the Olympic Games in London, a precedent that will be followed at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Major retailers such as Walmart, Sainsbury's and Tesco have selected the MSC benchmark for sustainably sourced fish. MSC is the only seafood sustainability certification program to be consistent with both the ISEAL Code of Good Practice and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation Guidelines for the eco-labelling of fish.

The MSC has offices or representatives in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, The Hague, Beijing, Berlin, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Halifax, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Santiago, Salvador, Singapore, Warsaw and Reykjavik.

Watch a short film about how the MSC is helping to secure sustainable seas for the future: http://youtu.be/bw5tsy05uM8?list=PLzcYV4srjVJQElNdTSumsMVD4voYlpDch.

Sustainable Fish Cities
Tel: 0203 5596 777. Contact: Ruth Westcott

The Sustainable Fish Cities campaign is run by marine conservation and food organisations working on sustainable seafood issues. The group includes: the Marine Conservation Society; Marine Stewardship Council; Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants; SeaWeb; Fish2Fork; and Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming (which coordinates the campaign). Sustainable Fish Cities developed from Sustain’s achievements in ensuring sustainabel food standarsd were woven into the London 2012 games, and has received commitments of sustainable fish policies from caterers that serve well over 200 million meals per year. In 2014, Sustainable Fish Cities went national, with campaigns being launched in 12 cities around the UK, with our help, as part of the Sustainable Food Cities initiative: www.sustainablefoodcities.org. 
www.fishcities.net