The surprising reality behind the £1.5 billion UK salmon trade | UK | News | EUROtoday

A plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, served with a glass of Bucks Fizz – it’s been Britain’s conventional breakfast on Christmas morning for so long as many people can bear in mind. But what was a once-a-year luxurious has now grow to be the most well-liked species of fish eaten within the UK, Europe, the US and Japan.

Approximately 3.5 million tonnes of salmon are consumed yearly all over the world. And within the UK alone, gross sales of salmon reached £1.5billion within the 12 months to August, accounting for nearly a 3rd of all fish consumed, in keeping with the trade physique, Salmon Scotland.

But low shares of untamed salmon – particularly the Atlantic selection native to our shores – signifies that over 70% at present comes as an alternative from fish farms, in keeping with the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, an alliance of activists, NGOs and scientists.

These mighty and nomadic creatures, whose pure intuition is to swim freely for hundreds of miles, are pressured to spend their complete lives in captivity. The piscine equal of battery hens, they’re born in hatcheries after which, on the “smolting” age, once they would usually migrate from the rivers of Scotland out to the North Atlantic Ocean, are confined to industrial-scale caged pens that, in keeping with many consultants, are breeding grounds for illness and cruelty.

Last month, the world’s main producer of farmed salmon, Mowi, was stripped of its Royal Warrant – that means its merchandise can be off the desk this 12 months at Sandringham the place the King (a life-long animal lover) and royal household historically collect for Christmas lunch.

The Royal Household doesn’t touch upon why corporations are added or faraway from its listing, however the choice adopted the emergence of filmed proof captured by The Great Britain Foundation displaying “systemic cruelty” – together with fish being crushed to dying – at Mowi’s Loch Harport web site on the Isle of Skye.

The farm additionally had its RSPCA Assured (an animal welfare scheme) accreditation suspended. That has now been reinstated following an investigation and workers retraining, a spokesperson for Mowi informed the Sunday Express. But the agency, which employs greater than 1,600 individuals in Scotland and provides nearly all of the UK’s farmed salmon, has been in bother earlier than.

In May 2023, the Norwegian-owned firm was fined £800,000 after admitting to well being and security breaches that led to the dying of one in every of its workers, Clive Hendry, 58, who was crushed and drowned throughout a ship switch.

Documents launched beneath the Freedom of Information Act, as reported by the Scottish Daily Record, confirmed that anadditional 49 employees have sustained accidents – together with amputations and damaged bones – over the past 5 years.

The sheer density of salmon packed into these farms can even lead to illnesses and viruses sweeping via the pens, in keeping with investigators from animal charities. The big quantity of excrement produced by the salmon, mixed with uneaten meals, sinks to the underside, harming marine life by smothering the seabed. And it’s not simply fish waste within the water both.

Video footage obtained by Animal Equality UK, a charity that champions the rights and welfare of livestock and fish within the meals trade, appeared to indicate a employee at one other fishery owned by Mowi urinating into one of many fish pens.

Abigail Penny is govt director of Animal Equality UK. She informed the Express how investigators had additionally offered her with proof captured on underwater cameras in lots of Scotland’s fish pens, together with Mowi and Bakkafrost Scotland.

“When you see the haunting footage we’ve captured, it’s hard not to believe that this is an industry blighted by contempt for animal, as well as human, welfare,” stated Abigail. “Salmon trapped in underwater cages while they’re eaten alive by lice, blind, diseased, or deformed.

“And when you consider that every farmed salmon is typically fed hundreds of other wild-caught fish before it, too, is then eatenby humans, it’s painfully clear that Scottish salmon farming is far from luxurious and nowhere near sustainable.”

Last month, grocery store large Tesco suspended orders from a Bakkafrost Scotland farm on Loch Torridon within the north-west Highlands primarily based oncovert footage launched by Animal Equality displaying lice-infested salmon trapped in a pen that was speculated to be empty.

Bakkafrost Scotland’s spokesperson informed the Express: “Six months ago, a very small number of fish were identified at our site on Loch Torridon, which had been declared fallow. We acted immediately to remove the fish, working with the relevant authorities.

“Following this, we undertook a comprehensive review of our procedures and implemented enhanced controls to ensure this does not happen again. At Bakkafrost Scotland, fish health and welfare are central to everything we do, and we remain committed to the highest standards of care and continuous improvement across operations.”

A spokesperson for Tesco stated: “We take animal welfare extremely seriously, and we expect all our suppliers to adhere to our high welfare standards.

“As soon as we were made aware of this concerning footage, we immediately suspended the farm to carry out an investigation with our supplier. Any failure to meet our high welfare standards is unacceptable and we take swift action where necessary.”

As the world struggles to cope with the so-called “protein crisis” – the necessity to present, in a sustainable method, sufficient diet for a always rising inhabitants – fish is usually touted because the extra ecologically sound different to meat.

But is producing extra fish at any value actually the reply? And is it really sustainable or extra wholesome?

Many well-respected consultants imagine not.

Dr Shireen Kassam is a guide haematologist and honorary senior lecturer at King’s College Hospital, London. She can also be the founder and director of the non-profit Plant-Based Health Professionals UK.

“Farmed salmon does not deserve to be considered a health food,” she stated. “Fish has conventionally been considered a healthy component of a diet, mainly because it is a source of long chain omega-3 fat. However, this does not consider the fact that farmed salmon now contains more saturated fat than wild fish, and lower amounts of omega-3 fats”.

An Australian environmental group discovered {that a} 200g serving of farmed salmon accommodates, on common, extra complete fats (although much less saturated fats) than a Big Mac.

“In addition,” stated Dr Kassam, “[farmed salmon] accumulates and exposes people to environmental pollutants, including microplastics, and to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. All of these issues are beginning to raise concerns about the potential for negative impacts on health.”

A high US-based physician, well being writer and president of the non-profit analysis and advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, primarily based in Washington DC, goes additional nonetheless.

Neal D Barnard informed the Express consuming farmed salmon was akin to “smoking a low tar cigarette”. He continued: “Salmon is wildly over-hyped. It has huge drawbacks.

“For starters, it interferes with weight loss. That’s because it’s a very fatty fish, and most of that fat is not omega-3 ‘good fat’. Those fat grams are calorie-dense. As a group, fish eaters are significantly heavier than people who avoid fish and other meats. The same is true for diabetes risk. Like all carnivores, salmon accumulate toxins.

“In addition, the crowding on aquatic factory farms means that chemicals are often used to control parasites that spread from one fish to the next.”

So is the trade at the least benefitting the native communities it operates in? Ailsa McLellan, a marine scientist from Wester Ross, within the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, says not.

“I worked on salmon farms after I graduated in marine science and then went on to audit farms for the RSPCA Assured scheme,” she stated. I rapidly realised there was no moral or humane option to rear carnivorous, migratory fish in small cages.

“Living beside a salmon farm is like living beside any other industrial factory farm – polluting, cruel, noisy, smelly and invasive. Generators run constantly to power 24 underwater lighting at this time of year – the farmers say this is for welfare but it’s to manipulate the fish’s maturation and growth rates.

“During the warmer months generators run 24/7 noisy compressors to blast oxygen, as there isn’t enough naturally in the water to support the thousands of fish in the pens. There are noisy boats to-ing and fro-ing day and night, sucking fish on and off salmon farms to be treated for diseases andsealice, or culled.”

She continued: “The only good thing salmon farms provide are jobs and money, and that makes it very hard to criticise them as they inveigle their way into cash-strapped communities by providing sponsorship and handouts for schools and events.

“But the jobs are becoming fewer as the industry constantly strives for automation. As for money, these are foreign-owned multinationals that treat Scotland’s coastal seas as an open sewer while they extract as much profit for their shareholders as they can in the process.”

Mowi informed the Express: “Mowi is rightly proud of its healthy and nutritious salmon and has been honoured to have held the Royal Warrant. Mowi does not comment on decisions made by the Royal Household.”

The firm added that every one of its Scotland farms are at the moment licensed by the RSPCA Assured label scheme. Regarding its web site at Lock Harport, Mowi added: “RSPCA protocol is toimmediately suspend sites whilst an investigation takes place. That investigation did take place andthe suspension was lifted from the site thereafter. All staff at all of Mowi Scotland’s farms receive regular refresher training to ensure they follow the strict requirements of the RSPCA welfare standard at all times.”

Salmon Scotland informed the Express:“Anti-salmon farming groups like Animal Equality UK rely on spurious and unsupported allegations to push an agenda that would shut down salmon farms and put 11,000 Scots out of work.

“Farmers, vets and fish health professionals monitor fish daily and Scotland has some of the highest welfare standards anywhere in the world. Sea lice levels are at some of the lowest on record and survival rates are among the highest, backed by more than £1billion of investment in welfare and veterinary care.”

While the Scottish Government’s Fish Farm Production Survey quotes a determine of 1,362 employed, Salmon Scotland says that solely counts marine workers, which is only a fraction of the sector’s complete workforce.

They say unbiased evaluation exhibits that salmon farming provides about £1billion a 12 months to Scotland’s economic system and can also be the UK’s largest meals export, price £844million final 12 months.

Whatever the figures, many high British cooks similar to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are taking industrially farmed fish off the desk. The River Cottage, TV presenter and meals author informed the Express: “I don’t use industrially farmed salmon at home or on our menu at River Cottage because I’m simply not confident it’s a sustainable product.

“The heavy use of prophylactic chemicals to treat these highly stressed fish; the pollution of the local marine environment from their faeces; and the unsustainable harvesting of wild fish to make the fish feed – it’s a triple whammy of environmental problems that are still a long way from being solved.”

Hugh has recommendation for Express readers wanting, like him, to serve one thing kinder, more healthy and extra sustainable this Christ-mas: “I’d much rather eat, and serve to my guests, locally landed wild fish caught by small scale inshore fishermen, or locally farmed shellfish such as mussels and oysters that come from a much cleaner and more sustainable type of aquaculture.

“And of course, whenever given the chance, I’d encourage anyone buying fish to eat at home to follow the same course.”