Sustainable Fish

Fish is a wonderful, tasty, healthy food and our diet would be so much poorer without it.

From a cheap and cheerful grilled sardine to a gourmet meal with the finest, freshest turbot, there are literally scores of different varieties to tempt us and thousands of ways to cook it.

But we all know that things are never that simple and those of us who saw The End Of The Line are only too aware of the complicated issues surrounding the catching, selling, buying and consumption of fish.

I opened Poisson, a fishmonger's shop in Nortfhields, Ealing, on December 1. Having lived in the area for ten years I knew there was a gap in the market and research confirmed a demand for top quality fresh fish.

But I was also aware that my customers would want to know about the fish I was supplying for dinner, where it came from, how it was caught, how it was transported etc and that they would also expect me to source my produce sustainably and ethically wherever possible. So that has been my policy from day one. If I can get my hands on line-caught cod from the East Coast then I do. The lemon and dover soles on the ice display at Poisson will hopefully have come from the dayboat fleets that operate off the South Coast. My herrings and oysters come from the seas off Essex, the dressed crabs from sustainable Cornish stocks.

Sometimes as much as 50 per cent of the fresh fish I sell is caught off the coasts of Scotland, which has made leaps and bounds in the management of its fisheries.

I looked at sustainability during my training as a fishmonger and part of that involved listening to what the fishermen had to say about the issue. I was impressed by their attitude.

I heard from a range of different people within the industry - Essex oystermen, West Country handliners, Hastings dayboaters, a halibut farmer from the Western Isles and the Scottish trawlermen made famous by the Beeb.

They all had a positive outlook for the future and the Scotsmen were a particularly interesting bunch who clearly appreciate our growing concerns about the environment and the effects their industry can have upon it.

They are also canny enough to acknowledge that dwindling fish stocks means dwindling income and so increasingly see themselves as 'stewards of the sea' with a responsibility to conserve fishery resources and, of course, their livelihoods and those of their sons and grandsons.

They accept the fact that they cannot take to sea every day, they use nets created to lessen the amount of bycatch, when a fishing ground is closed to allow stocks to replenish they observe the embargo, quotas are recognised, rules are obeyed.

Poisson's cod, haddock, squid, monkfish, halibut, langoustine, clams, scallops and skate are almost always from north of the border so it was reassuring to learn that Scotland leads the EU on sustainable fishing practices with its 'Conservation Credits' scheme.

Its herring, mackerel and West Coast langoustine fisheries have already achieved the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) environmental standard for sustainable fishing. North Sea haddock and langoustine fisheries are undergoing certification as we speak.

I'm comfortable buying and selling fish that's been caught by people who, like me, know the score environmentally while accepting that they still have a job to do and a living to earn.

At Poisson, openness and honesty is the policy. If a customer asks about the provenance of anything I'm selling then I'll do my best to give them all the facts.

If they decide not to buy as a result of that information, that's fine, but I'll never try to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. At the end of the day, there's no reason why we shouldn't enjoy fresh fish and seafood confident in the knowledge that everyone in the supply chain is doing their bit to ensure stocks are maintained for generations to come.

Simon Osborne
Director
Poisson Ltd