Once again fish sustainability is top-most of the agenda with the Marine Conservation Society updating the fish to eat and fish to avoid list. And the UK’s most dedicated sustainable canned fish company supports their work but fears that the important messages about which fish to eat are victims of oversimplification.

"There's been a bit lost in translation here unfortunately" says Tracy Wright, Communications Manager for Fish4Ever, “Journalists have quite rightly pinpointed tuna and anchovy as high risk in terms of sustainability but this is a really complex issues and sometimes suffers from being over-simplified. The Marine Conservation Society says anchovy in the Bay of Biscay need to be avoided and anchovy from elsewhere treated with caution. Tuna in general rates mid-way but there are many specific stocks in dire danger. If you look at both the analysis by Greenpeace on tuna and the MCS advice, you will find that Fish4Ever is choosing the best sustainability options".

Fish4Ever Buyer, Raffaella Scoretti explains that on every product sourced, the company does a great deal of detailed research: "We avoid all the main dangers, we look at the science on overall stocks, we look at incidence and likelihood of illegal fishing, we look at methods, we look at where it's fished and whose fishing it and we come up with a best choice. For example our anchovy is from the Mediterranean, we avoided the Bay of Biscay four or five years ago when our anchovy was launched, we use small local boats, we only pack a certain size".

She adds: “The big anchovy problem in the Mediterranean is the quantities used to feed bluefin tuna in fish farms -anything from 10Kg to 15Kg of anchovy is used up to make 1Kg of bluefin. It's crazy, somebody else's madness could kill off our sustainability decision".

And that is obviously one of the problems that needs to be addressed in fishing, the damage that one type of fishing or fishery can do to others....

Tracy Wright adds that Fish4Ever has worked really hard to make the right decisions with tuna and with the whole range but above all supports a pro-active and very open approach:- "Many companies say it's too difficult to tell where their fish has come from but we don't find it all difficult: every single product we have says on the pack both where and how's it's fished! Plus we give in depth details on our website through a "trace your fish" option on the front page - for every product we have, all the issues are covered per fish as well as more generally, it's all mapped out clearly so consumers can make an informed sustainability decision".

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