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FISH AND TIPS
Cornwall Good Seafood Guide News

Autumn 2019

Warm water fish win out in sustainability review

Cornwall’s go to information point on seafood, run by Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide website, is looking better than ever, and the latest seafood sustainability ratings are available online now, to help consumers and businesses make sure that the seafood they buy comes from sustainable sources. The ratings are reviewed bi-annually and this summer’s changes show some interesting trends.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Matt Slater says – "It is notable that warm water species have been doing better in our seas over recent years. Monkfish, gilthead bream, hake, and sole all have good ratings.

Species that are not fairing as well are mainly those who prefer cooler conditions such as cod, whiting and herring, which are also being heavily fished by the combined European trawler fleet."

There is increasing evidence that climate change is producing dramatic changes to our planet and although we naturally get fluctuations in temperature over long time scales in our waters, currently we are seeing notable warming. This coupled with fishing effort is having an impact on our fish stocks.

Eat Local and reduce your carbon footprint

Eating local, and choosing wild caught seafood from well-managed fisheries is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. Compared to red meat, fish has a far lower carbon footprint, and compared to farmed fish such as salmon, wild-caught, local sustainable seafood has an even lower carbon footprint.

With Brexit looming we must all try to eat locally sourced food more. We currently export much of the seafood landed to Cornwall and import much of seafood we eat, but it would make far more sense if we all started eating local seafood regularly. We urge the public to visit our website to learn about seafood and to appreciate the wealth of great sustainable seafood we have on our doorstep.

So what ratings have changed this summer?

With improved scores we see monkfish, bass, gilthead bream, pollack and sole.

With decreased scores we have whiting, haddock, cod and herring.

Still highly sustainable and recommended are mussels, oysters, brown crab, lobsters, sardines, hake, plaice, mackerel and many more.

You can view the complete list of recommended species and download a pdf to keep from our home page or by clicking the button below!

Veiw our full list of Recommended Seafood HERE

Monkfish

Notable changes this year are an improvement in the rating for monkfish, landed in significant quantities to Cornish ports. Monkfish is caught mainly by tangle netters and also by beam trawlers but a large percentage of the landings are currently being exported. Ratings have improved thanks to the latest scientific advice from ICES (International Council for Exploration of the Sea) which shows that fishing effort for this species is dropping and that stocks of this fish, also known as anglerfish, are increasing.

Bass

In recent years we have heard much about the dire state of bass in European waters. Until recently this species had very little protection and stocks were brought dangerously low by overfishing. The latest report from ICES gives a glimmer of hope and suggests that stocks are beginning to re-build, thanks in the most to Europe-wide measures that reduced the catch of this species. Sustainability ratings for Cornish bass have thus improved with handline caught bass now scoring a 3 out of five and making its way back onto our recommended list. Please be careful to only buy bass that bear a blue line caught tag from the SW Handliners Association https://www.linecaught.org.uk.

Cod and Whiting

Cod, and whiting caught in Cornish waters have unfortunately both had their scores downgraded this summer. In both the Western Channel and Celtic sea, cod and whiting stocks are now well below sustainable levels. This may partly be due to a run of mild winters over the past few years and an overall increase in average sea temperatures. Cod and whiting favour colder waters and the survival and hence recruitment of young fish to the stocks has been poor now for several years. Additionally fishing effort for cod in our waters by the combined EU fleet is still above sustainable levels preventing the species from recovering. Cod has not been recommended for a few years now and whiting has now been removed from our recommended list.

Herring

Off Cornwall’s north coast herring was once a very important species supporting a huge fishery. It is little targeted nowadays by Cornish fishermen but there is a fleet of Irish boats that fish for them. However stocks of this shoaling fish are now thought to be in trouble in the Celtic sea with ICES advising a zero catch in 2020. Due to this they are no longer on our recommended list. It is hoped that with better management this stock could once again become healthy in our waters.

Check out our new website!

Thanks to funding from European Maritime and Fisheries fund we are proud to annouce our brand new and improved website. Falmouth based Web design agency Dewsign have done a terriffic job of modernising and improving the site and provided a huge amount of additional pro-bono work as they fully support our project. If you havent paid a visit for a while please check it out and let us know what you think!

New features of our website.

How to guides - Brand new instructional films to help us enjoy our local seafood.

Five steps to perfect Hake and Chips

with Pete Fraser of the Harbour Lights Fish and Chips Restaurant, Falmouth

Five steps to picking out a spider crab

With Gareth Horner of E.Rawle and Co, Newquay

Download a full colour PDF of our recommended species list to print out and keep

Fishermens meetings a big success

Through our new funding we are working more closely with fishermen and this year we have run 3 successful fishermen's meetings with the aim of updating fishermen on the value of our project, learning from them about issues that we can work together on and sharing information on ways in which fishermen can better market themselves using social media. Laurence Hartwell of Through the Gaps (Newlyn) shared stories of fishermen who have successfully marketed themselves to ensure that they are making the best of their sustainable catch. More meetings will be carried out this winter and we aim to visit Looe, Newlyn and Padstow. As an output of the meetings we organised a Spider Crab celebration Day at Newquay Harbour, we are helping out with a Sardine promotion day at Mevagissey (Saturday 5th October - details below) and we are now working more closely with the Falmouth Fishery Management Comittee.

Promoting Wild Pacific Oysters

Conservationists and harbour masters are becoming increasingly concerned with the explosion in populations of the non native Pacific oyster around Cornwall's coast, particularly in the south coast estuaries. This species lives on the inter tidal and when conditions are perfect they will totally smother the shore creating oyster reefs, this can result in loss of important habitat for birds and fish to feed on as well as presenting a potential shipping hazard. Natural England are looking at ways in which to deal with this material and although oysters have to be purified before they can be consumed one potential answer to the problem, particularly for oysters found free living on soft shores will be to eat them. Cornwall Good Seafood guide are working with Chefs, shellfish merchants and fishermen to help create a market for these 'wonky' oysters.
A meeting to discuss the potential uses of wild pacific oysters has been set up for November - please get in touch if you are interested in more infomation.

Cornwall Good Seafood Guide discussed in Westminster

This July, Matt Slater of Cornwall Good Seafood Guide was invited to speak at the All Party Parlimentary Group for Fisheries meeting at Westminster. The subject of the event was marketing and sustainability and present were parliamentarians, seafood business representatives and sustainability experts from all around the country. It was a great opportunity and many useful contacts were made. Cornwall Good Seafood Guide has attracted much attention, with many other regions feeling that what we are doing by focusing in detail on our local fisheries should be replicated around the entire UK. Article in Cornish Stuff about the event

New funding opportunities

A new government funded Seafood Innovation Fund was lauched this summer and is being led by CEFAS will provide funding to deliver, cutting-edge innovation across the seafood sector. Helping to take innovative ideas from early stage research to commercial viability.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-seafood-innovation-fund

Coming up

Join us on the quayside to talk fish and to sample some delicious fresh sardines!

Catch us at the Falmouth Oyster Festival where Cornwall Good Seafoods Guides Matt Slater will be joined on stage by Guy Owen, head chef of the Idle Rocks Hotel, St Mawes, winners of Seafish Seafood Restaurant of the Year 2018. We will be talking pacific oysters and looking at how best to enjoy them!.

Thursday 10th October, 4pm, Events Square Falmouth

Tell us what you think!

We are here to help you. Please let us know what we can do to help you whether you want to improve on your sustainable seafood choices or increase promotion of your business through our website and social media. You can contact us via seafood@cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk or phone 01872 302251

Visit our website

Massive thanks to all our brilliant supporters! All the businesses on our where to buy directory have pledged to serve sustainable Cornish seafood and their contribution keeps our vital work going.
For a full list please visit our 'Where to buy' Directory

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Our vision - to see a future where productive fisheries co-exist with healthy seas. To achieve this we spread good news and help people make good seafood choices. We want to help local people reconnect with the Cornish fishing industry and encourage them to eat sustainable Cornish seafood regularly.

The Cornwall Good Seafood Guide rating of seafood sustainability is underpinned by the Marine Conservation Society Good Fish Guide, Who we work closely with to ensure that all of Cornwall's fisheries are represented and all available local infomation is taken into account when scoring.
For more information on how we rate seafood visit www.fishonline.org

Cornwall Good Seafood Guide was established with the help of European Fisheries fund, the MMO and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Fisheries Local Action Group. We are currently funded by European Maritime and Fisheries fund and by contributions from our Business Supporters scheme

Copyright © 2019 Cornwall Good Seafood Guide, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
seafood@cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk
Phone no: 01872 302251
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Cornwall Good Seafood Guide · Cornwall Good Seafood Guide · Cornwall Wildlife Trust · Truro, Cornwall TR4 9DJ · United Kingdom

FISH AND TIPS Cornwall Good Seafood Guide News