Sustainable cod and chips

Fish and chip lovers will now be able to order North Sea cod with a “clear conscience” after the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) declared the North Sea fish is sustainable.

Considered under threat for more than a decade after stocks fell to 36,000 tonnes in 2006, the fish can now be sold in supermarkets with a blue tick eco-label on the packaging, indicating to consumers that the product is sustainable and fully traceable.

Approximately 70,000 tonnes of cod is consumed in the UK each year and after the fishery came close to collapsing, a “cod recover plan” was introduced, which aimed to reduce the number of day boats to help decrease the number of annual catches.

Approximately 60% of the fishing was stopped, as large spawning areas used for fishing were closed off, the industry trialled new nets and CCTV cameras were installed on boats to monitor catches.

The MSC stated that cod now being labelled as sustainable is a “momentous achievement” for the business and was made possible by a union of fishing organisations, seafood brands, supermarkets and the industry body Seafish.

Toby Middleton from the MSC told the BBC: “If you can see the MSC label on your cod, you know that it has come from a sustainable source. By choosing fish with that label, you will be helping to protect stocks long into the future”.

All the fish we serve is caught sustainably. The environment is one of our top priorities and embedded into the ethos of our business.