Retailers’ labels ‘inadequate’ in fight to save endangered fish

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) issued the warning as it launched its new website aimed at consumers and published comprehensive updated advice on buying fish caught from sustainably managed stocks.

The latest advice shows improvements in the management and status of stocks in some fisheries, including cod from the eastern and western Baltic and the north-east Arctic, and anchovies from the Bay of Biscay.

But the situation for other fish has worsened. Dover sole caught by the destructive method of beam trawling in the western English Channel, the Irish Sea and south-west and west Ireland is now listed as a fish to avoid.

Consumers should also now avoid yellowfin tuna caught using purse seine nets or long lines in the Indian Ocean. But eating skipjack tuna caught using poles and lines in the Western Atlantic has the green light thanks to improvements in data on the stocks.

The conservation organisation has launched a Good Fish Guide website, complete with advice and recipe ideas, to make it easier for people to shop for sustainable seafood in supermarkets and restaurants.

The straightforward guide aims to complement the more comprehensive Fish Online website used by the public, chefs and industry, which has also been updated.

The MCS has also produced the latest version of its Pocket Good Fish Guide which offers traffic light advice on fish to eat, think about and avoid, and says the public now has no excuse not to make choices that ensure fish stocks remain healthy.

But the conservation society said labelling by retailers does not give enough information on exactly which fisheries species are coming from, preventing consumers from buying fish from well-managed areas and avoiding unsustainable fisheries.

Information that is more detailed than the species, the ocean it comes from and the fishing method is needed to help people discriminate between sustainable and unsustainable seafood.

MCS aquaculture and fisheries programme manager Dr Peter Duncan said it could also provide incentives to fisheries to promote better management which could then become a selling point for them.

“If supermarkets could get their produce from well-managed fisheries and label it as such, it opens up new opportunities for the public and fishermen. It’s a win-win.”

He said it was “hard to believe” that supermarkets did not know exactly where their fish came from.

“The use of a traffic light system to indicate the nutritional value of supermarket produce is now well-established. However, the labelling of fish and fish products sold in supermarkets has not kept up,” he added.

“It is still virtually impossible to tell precisely where most fish and fish products have been caught.”

The society is also urging people to vary the type of fish they buy, as the majority of sales focus on just five species.

Dr Duncan said: “We know in the UK, 90 per cent of fish sales are from just five species: tuna, cod, salmon, prawns and haddock. But such a limited range causes problems not only for these target species but also for fish caught accidentally that are then thrown away.

“We need to change the situation so that maybe 50 per cent to 70 per cent of sales would come from the top five and alternatives could start appearing: pollack, gurnard, coley, dab, sprats.

“Such fish have recently been unfashionable or discarded but they are, in reality, tasty, often cheaper and more sustainable.”