The seafood supply and retail industry feared the worst from Hugh’s Fish Fight, but the chef’s campaigning has brought a sea change, boosting sales of less familiar species, encouraging greater sustainability and spurring the EU into action, says Richard Ford


When news broke last year that TV chef and long-time welfare campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was gearing up for an assault on fishing industry practices, fish producers, processors and retailers up and down the country braced themselves for a storm.

And Hugh’s Fish Fight certainly made an impact: in the weeks after the series aired on Channel 4 in January this year, consumers were scampering to buy unusual species of fish he had encouraged them to try, while many retailers and suppliers in the industry rushed out new sustainable sourcing pledges.

But five months on, what is the long-term legacy of Hugh’s Fish Fight? Has the chef had any measurable impact on the workings of the UK seafood supply chain, and how have public perceptions of the sector changed as a result of his show?

The issues Fearnley-Whittingstall had chosen to focus on were longstanding and well known in the industry problems such as the unsustainability of salmon feed, tuna catching methods, as well as the wastes of discarding fish at sea were skilfully reheated, and the series has injected momentum into EU fisheries reforms.

In particular, Hugh’s Fish Fight has helped sharpen the debate on the Common Fisheries Policy by “waking up” Maria Damanaki, the EU fisheries commissioner, and giving her a reason to press ahead with reforms on discards, believes Andrew Kuyk, director of sustainability and competitiveness at the FDF. The government and industry had long been lobbying Europe to fix the flaws of the CFP, including the rules on discards highlighted by the chef, but talks about the CFP had largely taken place away from the public eye, says Kuyk.

Thanks to Hugh, fisheries reform has been rendered easily digestible for the public, and a ban on discards is now firmly on the cards. On 1 March Damanaki outlined her vision for ending discards in EU waters, saying she hoped to gradually bring in a ban.

“Fish Fight has shown it’s no longer just something being discussed in backrooms in Brussels; it is actually something the public is concerned about,” says Kuyk, citing the results of a January WWF poll that found 44% of consumers were in favour of reforming the CFP to ensure all EU fish products came from sustainable sources. “You couldn’t have got that level of public awareness and public engagement without something like Fish Fight,” he says.

Damanaki herself acknowledged the impact Hugh’s Fish Fight has had on the CFP earlier this month, when she reported that more than half a million people from the UK had signed a letter asking her to end discards. “In the UK, sales of lesser-known fish have gone up 45% after the recent TV shows on sustainable consumption,” she said, adding that the UK should act as an example for other member states. “I believe if it can work in the UK, it can work elsewhere.”

Hugh’s Fish Fight has certainly made consumers much more aware of just how diverse a range of seafood is available in Britain, agrees Jon Harman, business development director at industry body Seafish. By positively highlighting the UK’s wealth of seafood, the programme has done much to accelerate the work that was already happening in the seafood industry, not least through the Seafish-led Discard Action Group, set up two years ago, he argues. “The UK does have a love affair with the top five or six species,” says Harman. “Anything that spreads the load of sustainability has got to be a good thing.”

One example can be seen at Tesco, where pouting was introduced to counters after it was recommended on the programme. Largely unknown beforehand, pouting sales in Tesco have since reached 50% of the sales of cod, the UK’s most popular white fish.

It isn’t just unusual species of fish that have benefited. “Although certain species had a boost, fish in general was reappraised by customers,” says Andrew McTeare, Sainsbury’s category buyer for fish counters. Following Fish Fight, sales of line-caught cod were up 102% year-on-year in Sainsbury’s in January and 49% in February, while sales of organic salmon soared 285% in February and 200% in March. Sainsbury’s says it also continues to see strong consumer interest in species featured in recipes in the series, such as squid, mussels, mackerel and trout.

Although spikes in demand have provided retailers with short-term gains in category profits, for many in the industry, the most important legacy is that the chef gave retailers and others an excuse to talk to consumers about their work on seafood sustainability. “It has increased consumer awareness of the work we have been doing over the past 10 years,” says McTeare.

To ensure Sainsbury’s customers received that message loud and clear, the retailer sent a letter from its director of Sainsbury’s brand, Judith Batchelar, to 750,000 loyalty-card holders after Hugh’s Fish Fight was shown on TV, spelling out its credentials on fish sourcing, and offering 100 bonus Nectar points on any fish product.

Other retailers have turned Hugh’s Fish Fight to their advantage by using the chef himself as a convenient and credible mark of celebrity approval for any sustainable seafood initiative they have cared to launch since January. Asda made sure a recent press release announcing a switch to line-caught cod and haddock carried a quote from the man himself, expressing his delight that “Asda are taking such positive first steps towards providing their customers with responsibly sourced and sustainable seafood choices”.

Even canned tuna suppliers who were very much in Hugh’s firing line say sales have held up. According to Nielsen, the canned tuna market was up 2.6% by volume and 9.1% by value in the 12 weeks to 19 March, with market leader Princes increasing its volume sales 56.1% and value sales by 60.9%.

Princes marketing director Ruth Simpson admits some gains are down to increased distribution, but stresses a heavy focus on above-the-line advertising and added-value promotions on packs, such as a ‘win a trip to Mauritius’ competition, have also helped drive sales.

And while Princes’ Simpson claims that Princes’ 10 March announcement (see ‘Key Milestones’) and its launch of a pole-and-line caught tuna range were already things the company had been working on pre-Hugh, she admits that Fish Fight has, at least, resulted in the company working more closely with NGOs and retailers on sustainability than it has done in the past.

Fish Fight has also found its way into NPD. Young’s launched a battered mackerel under its Chip Shop range of frozen fish in March, capitalising on the chef’s quest to encourage more people to eat mackerel by serving it up fish shop-style, battered and in a bap. The limited-edition packs, which hit Tesco and Morrisons in April, have the slogan ‘Put mackerel on the menu’.

With so much achieved, retailers and processors realise it is now vital to keep up the momentum. “To encourage consumers to try a wider variety of fish, it is important not just to emphasise the responsibly sourced fish consumers should be buying, but also to show them what to do with it,” says Young’s Seafood CEO Leendert den Hollander.

This has prompted Young’s to launch a new range ‘Easy Cook’ that will feature sustainable fish species such as pollock in an easy-to-cook format. And den Hollander also promises “some other exciting plans in response to Fish Fight and our diversification drive” in the future.

Giving den Hollander and, indeed, the lobbyists a helping hand will be Fish Fight 2, the follow-up programme due to be aired later this year, which will refocus consumer attention on sustainable fishing practices.

This time round, the industry is roundly on the chef’s side. “He’s obviously got a huge success on his hands so he’s got an open door with the industry,” says Asda category director for fish and meat Elaine Robinson. And given how divisive TV food crusades have sometimes been in the past, it is surely his new status as the industry’s best friend that is Fearnley-Whittingstall’s most impressive legacy to date.


Hugh’s fish fight: key milestones

11 January - The first of three Fish Fight episodes airs on Channel 4; Tesco pledges to move all its canned tuna to pole-and-line by the end of 2012
1 March - EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki gives speech outlining her vision for ending fish discards in EU waters
10 March - Princes announces it will purchase all its tuna from pole-and-line and FAD (fish aggregating devices)-free sources by the end of 2012; Asda announces it will eliminate the use of FADs by the end of 2014
10 April - Asda announces it will switch all chilled cod and haddock lines to line-caught from 9 May
12 April - Morrisons announces it is moving its own-label canned tuna as well as all tuna used in its own-label products to either pole-and-line or non-FAD fishing methods
20 April - The Sustainable Seafood Coalition is formed with the aim of creating a more sustainable seafood supply chain. Members include Morrisons, The Co-operative Group, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Birds Eye, Young’s Seafood Limited, Icelandic Group (through its brand The Saucy Fish Co.), Fish4Ever, the FDF, Client Earth and Hugh’s Fish Fight
14 May - Princes launches its first branded range of pole-and-line caught tuna

Read the full Meat & Fish Supplement 2011

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