Peter Hajipieris, chief technical sustainability and external affairs officer at Iglo Group, which owns the Birds Eye brand, said his firm had created new brands using less popular fish.“We made a decision to help cod stocks recover,”he said.
“We did this by challenging the notion that the Great British public would only eat cod,” he toldthe Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum’s Future of UK Fishing seminar.
“We created a new brand: the Omega3 fish finger, made with pollock. Within a year of the launch, 72% of people had switched from cod to Alaskan pollock.”
Hajipieris said such projects had helped North Sea cod stocks recover by 20%. Cod discards were also reduced by 52% in the past year, he added.
North Sea fish
Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said “More progress has been made [at helping to conserve North Sea fish stocks] in the past two years for cod than in the past 20.”
Jon Walker, sustainable fish co-ordinator of campaign group, Sustain, agreed that food manufacturers should replace less sustainable species such as cod, skate and plaice with species such as pollock.
“Food manufacturers should look to source only fish that are identifiably sustainable. They should use schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification scheme and produce food from only sustainable stock,”said Walker.
“As a food manufacturer, you have plenty of scope to explore other species that are sustainable. Using sustainable species will reflect businesses positively to consumers and help to offset the effects of price rises,” he added.
Walker said food manufacturers should also help to educate consumers about buying food products made from sustainable supplies. More detailed labels – specifying where and how fish had been caught – would help consumers to make more informed and therefore, sustainable buying decisions, he said.
Speakers agreed that manufacturers shouldn’t wait for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to take effect. Food manufacturers should take the initiative themselves, they said.
Right direction
David Baldock, executive director, institute for European Environmental Policy, said: “The CFP is going in the right direction, but will take time to implement. Restoring stocks to a maximum sustainable yield is a long-term mission; it’s a slow and stately process. In the short-term we should be educating consumers.”
Baldock agreed that better labels are the key to educating consumers.“What we need to see is mandatory labelling showing where and how fish was caught.”
The opinion of the delegates was that consumers want to choose products that are sustainable, but are left feeling confused as to the right products to buy.
Hajipieris said: “Consumers cannot be expected to be experts. They look towards food manufacturers to solve issues for them. When choosing a product, they consider price, quality and sustainability. It is important that all that information is clearly displayed to them on the packet.”
