Jason Holland

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight campaign returns to UK TV screens on Monday.

Six months after launching Fish Fight, which informed UK consumers about the regulations passed down to the country’s fishing industry from Brussels through its much-maligned Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), Fearnley-Whittingstall is back on Channel 4 with a 60-minute episode titled “Hugh’s Fish Fight: The Battle Continues.”

The new program coincides with

John Ross Jr. (Aberdeen) Ltd., Scotland’s oldest commercial producer of traditional Scottish smoked salmon, struck gold for the third consecutive year at this year’s Great Taste Awards, organized by the Guild of Fine Food. 

The Aberdeen smokehouse was awarded a gold-star rating for its Balmoral Fillet after 350 judges blind tasted 7,481 products from 1,600 producers over a period of 34 days.

Slow-smoked over oak and beech wood chippings for

South Australia’s Kinkawooka Shellfish Co. “petit bouchot” mussels took the top prize at this year’s Delicious magazine produce awards, winning the title of “Producer of the Year.”

The awards — revered in the Australian food industry and judged by luminaries such as Maggie Beer, Alla Wolf Tasker and Cheong Liew — recognize the best of Australia’s food producers, from the dairy, the paddock, the earth and the sea. 

Kinkawooka

An intriguing dichotomy now exists between two of the world’s leading farmed seafood items — shrimp and Atlantic salmon. Early this year, prices for both had been at records highs in line with short supply and high demand, but increased global production of salmon has seen its farm gate price come crashing down. Conversely, because of static output, shrimp prices show little sign of falling in the short to medium term.

Just a few months ago,

With just two days until Maria Damanaki officially presents her proposals for reform of the Europe Union’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), we’ve now reached the critical stage where the EU Fisheries Commissioner needs all the supporters of her fisheries management overhaul to weigh in with the political backing she’s been hard soliciting. 

Certainly in recent months it’s become apparent the commissioner’s wish list of proposals

Dr. Tom Pickerell, director of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain (SAGB), has been appointed senior science manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

The position he will take up in mid-September is within the Sustainable Seafood Initiative at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s division of Conservation Outreach.

Pickerell will be responsible for the overall scientific approach of the Seafood Watch program through the development and

Britain has this year been awash with new retail campaigns aimed at influencing the seafood-buying habits of its 60 million-plus population. The most recent of these, Sainsbury’s “Switch the Fish” scheme, is aimed at getting the supermarket chain’s customers to purchase alternatives to the nation’s five most popular species: cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and shrimp. Together these account for 75 to 80 percent of total fish sales.

To

The reform process for Europe’s much-maligned Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is about to enter its most crucial stage. While it’s widely agreed the current CFP is ineffective, there are mounting concerns the ambitious proposals soon to be put forward by EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki for implementation in 2013 will be vetoed because of the immediate detrimental impacts they will have on many member states’ fishing communities.

Sustainability is a subject that has in the past caused considerable confusion within the seafood industry. Therefore, as a journalist, I take great interest in how it’s perceived by consumers — the people who physically buy fish.

Last week, the opportunity came to indulge this curiosity through a one-off “Sustainable Fish Supper.” For just GBP 60 (EUR 70, USD 100), I was to be treated to a menu comprising several different dishes using

The newly formed Sustainable Seafood Coalition (SSC), established by environmental law organization ClientEarth, has announced its vision and nine specific goals for the UK seafood market following its first meeting late last week.
SSC’s vision is simply: “All fish and seafood sold in the UK is from sustainable sources.”

The organization aims to:

• Promote sustainable seafood consumption

• Encourage UK consumers to eat a wider variety of