Marine conservation groups ‘Point the Fish Finger’ at UK restaurant chains

Please read our update to this campaign before reading the press release below!

The campaign is asking members of the public to ‘Point the Fish Finger’ at high-street food outlets JD Wetherspoon, Café Rouge and Bella Italia.

Each of the restaurant and pub groups are asked to take Sustain’s Sustainable Fish Cities pledge - a public commitment to serve only demonstrably sustainable fish [1]. To measure progress, they will then be assessed by Fish2fork and given a sustainability rating.

To encourage the restaurant and pub chains and to show them the level of concern about seafood sustainability, members of the public are urged to ‘Point the Fish Finger’ by going online to tell them unsustainable seafood must be kept off the menu.

The three restaurant groups serve more than 185 million meals per year and represent around 12% of the high street restaurant market [2]. It is estimated that 28,000 people eat Fish and Chips each week as part of JD Wetherspoons’ ‘Fish Friday’ alone [3].

In a recent survey by Fish2fork and MCS it was found that several restaurant chains were failing to demonstrate publicly that the seafood they were serving was sustainable [4]. They included Café Rouge and Bella Italia, two of the UK’s best known and most popular high street restaurants.

JD Wetherspoon also serves large quantities of seafood and it is vital that pub chains can demonstrate they use sustainable supplies.

Ruth Westcott, from Sustainable Fish Cities said:
“These companies are more than overdue a shakeup of their fish policies. There are plenty of sustainable fish options available and in fact they may be doing some good things already, but without a clear commitment and strong, meaningful and publicly accessible fish policy, customers are left in the dark.”

Sam Stone, from the Marine Conservation Society said:
“We hope that, by receiving messages from our supporters, these brands will realise how concerned people are about last month’s survey.”
“Our supporters tell us that they want to see sustainable fish on the menu, but high street restaurant chains just aren’t doing enough to  either buy sustainable seafood or to inform diners about the seafood they’re selling.”

Tim Glover, managing director of Fish2fork, said:
“The choices restaurants make about which fish or shellfish to use have a direct impact on the health of our seas. That’s why it is so important restaurants and pubs take great care to make sure their selections do not come from overfished areas.”

The restaurants have been offered a series of simple asks, based on the results of the recent survey by Fish2fork and the Marine Conservation Society other information gathered from company websites and in restaurants.

To Point the Fish Finger at the large UK restaurant chains, TAKE ACTION HERE

ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Ruth Westcott
Sustain
0203 5596 777
ruth@sustainweb.org
@FishCities

[1] By signing the Sustainable Fish Cities pledge, businesses promise to take the appropriate steps to buy and promote sustainable seafood, to protect precious marine environments and fish stocks, and good fishing livelihoods. Specifically to source sustainably by:
- Avoiding the worst: Removing those rated as ‘fish to avoid’ by the Marine Conservation Society: http://www.fishonline.org/fishfinder?min=5&max=5&fish=&avoid=1
 - Promoting the best: Serving sustainably managed fish – MSC/ASC certified, organic, BAP 3* rated or GlobalGap certified, and those rated as ‘fish to eat’ by the Marine Conservation Society http://www.fishonline.org/fishfinder?min=1&max=2&fish=&eat=1
 - Improving the rest: Influence wider progress by supporting fishery improvement, telling supplier(s) that they only want to serve sustainable fish, and take time-bound action on any species considered ‘fish to eat occasionally’.

Sustainable Fish Cities is a campaign aiming to end overfishing by transforming the way fish is served and celebrated across towns and cities in the UK. It is convened by Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming, alongside marine conservation and food organisations working on sustainable seafood issues including Fish2Fork, the Marine Conservation Society; Marine Stewardship Council; Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants; The Sustainable Restaurant Association. It works with local campaigns across 15 cities targetting caterers in different settings. So far caterers serving over 500 million meals per year have committed to the pledge standards.  Find out more here: https://www.sustainweb.org/sustainablefishcity/

[2] Calculated from http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Events-Awards/M-B-enters-Restaurant-magazine-s-R200-list and http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/UK_Foodservice_Industry_in_2012.pdf

[3] JD Wetherspoon operates 950 pubs in the UK. At a low estimate of each pub serving 10 portions of fish and chips at lunch, and 20 in the evening, this would come to 28,500 portions each Friday

[4] Large high street brands were found to be serving species on the MCS ‘fish to avoid’ list, including warm-water prawns and sea bass. Information about the source of the fish – crucial to its sustainability – was not available to consumers. This is despite many others in the food-service sector having meaningful, public commitments to only serve demonstrably sustainable seafood including thousands of schools, workplace caterers, all UK prisons, all English and Welsh hospitals and hundreds of small restaurants http://www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do/Fishing+for+our+future/Fishing+for+our+future/Restaurant+chains+rated+for+seafood+sustainability