Bournemouth and Poole in the United Kingdom recently became the world’s first “Sustainable Fish City,” a commitment signifying that the majority of meals served in restaurants and catering establishments across the city will contain only sustainable fish. The Sustainable Fish Cities initiative began in 2011, inspired by the commitment to serve 100 percent sustainable fish at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.
SeafoodSource caught up with Sarah Watson, sustainable food city manager for Bournemouth and Poole, to talk about what the recognition means for the city.
Blank: Congratulations on becoming the first Sustainable Fish City! What does this mean, essentially?
Watson: This means that a range of organizations, institutions and businesses across Bournemouth and Poole have signed a pledge and are now only serving fish from sustainable sources in just over 3.6 million fish meals a year. This helps preserve ever-decreasing global fish stocks, gives our local communities better fish choices, raises awareness of the need to buy sustainably and enables our businesses to promote their ethical and sustainable credentials. We also have a large number of tourists visit us every year, so we’re hoping we’ll also be able to influence them so that, when they return home, they’re asking where the fish they eat has come from until serving sustainable fish is the expected, normal practice.
Blank: How much time and effort went into preparing for the Sustainable Fish City designation?
Watson: It has taken a lot of work to get to this point and it has been a real team effort across the city to get people on board. We’ve had to talk to lots of people in many different organizations, but generally we’ve found that, when people become aware of the situation and what we’ve been trying to achieve, they have been very open to exploring how they can join the campaign and adapt their menus. One of the real challenges has been working across many different sectors while making sure our campaign was as relevant to a high-end restaurant as it was to a hospital caterer.
Blank: Which organizations and businesses will now be serving sustainable fish meals?
Watson: We are proud to say that, through our campaign, both of our major hospitals, our university and Higher Education College are now only serving sustainable fish on their menus. Nearly all of our schools have signed the pledge as well as our leisure centers, conference venues and theatres, and we’re hoping to make that all of them by the end of this year. Our large employers who have staff canteens, including our own council and major international businesses like Abbey Life and JP Morgan, have also signed. Finally, we have also received pledges from a variety of local businesses – everything from fish and chip takeaways to high-end restaurants. Even AFC Bournemouth, our Premier League football club, has joined our campaign!
Blank: How did the participating businesses have to transform their sourcing practices to become sustainable?
Watson: Well, some were actually already sourcing sustainably – although not that many, to be honest. For the majority of them, we worked with them to encourage them to make the pledge. This committed them to remove all the “red listed” endangered species from their menu, actively promote all the “green” sustainably-sourced fish and work towards changing the “amber” fish to sustainable options. The first step was to audit all their current fish – essentially all those on their supplier lists – which in some cases was really easy and in others, like the hospitals, was a much more complex task. This involved not only identifying where the fish came from but also how they had been caught. We couldn’t have done this without the expert help of Sustain and the Marine Stewardship Council. This then enabled us to identify the fish our pledges needed to remove and suggest changes they could make to improve the sustainability of their other fish. In many cases, we actually saved them money as many of the suggested fish swaps were cheaper.
Blank: How have city residents responded to this? Are the participating businesses realizing increased sales as a result of the program?
Watson: We have really only just started promoting this to our city residents, but the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Nearly everyone has said that they weren’t aware of the issue before talking to us and we’ve been able to provide really simple things they can do to change their purchasing habits and ensure the fish they eat is sustainably sourced. We’ve also been using the campaign to encourage people to eat more fish, as it’s so incredibly good for you. We’ve been taking our giant fish out and about, asking people to make a pledge to only buy sustainable fish and stick that pledge to his belly to make up all his scales – we’ve filled him so many times over as people are so enthusiastic knowing that they really an make a difference to such an important issue. We are launching a new section of our website next month, which will help people find places that have made the pledge and are providing point-of-sale materials, such as a window sticker and daily fish specials blackboard to our participating businesses. We really hope this will all help people buy and eat at businesses that are part of the campaign.
