The clamour for value is helping boost sales of kippers in the recession.

Sales of kippers, or smoked herring, have gone up 8% by volume over the past year, according to Nielsen, with Brits now spending £14.8m a year on the fish, a 13% increase.

Kippers are made when herring is smoked for up to 18 hours, usually over oak wood shavings.

They can be found readily in supermarkets either whole or filleted and are normally vacuum-packed. They are sold for as little as £1 for two fillets.

As an oily fish, herring is packed with healthy long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins - good for heart health, according to industry authority Seafish. The fish is in season from April until November.

Herring was a "much underrated" fish caught around the coast of the UK, said Seafish. It is highly sustainable with three UK fisheries certified by the MSC. Fishermen catching herring vary from one man drift-netting in The Thames, through the Hastings fleet right up to the large pelagic vessels that fish the North Sea. Seafish recently sent high-end Craster kippers to Terry Wogan's BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in a PR exercise to promote the fish's versatility.

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