Mowi has lost its royal warrant following concerns over animal abuse at one of its sites.
The salmon supplier’s name was removed from the royal warrant holders’ list after 35 years of being the official supplier of salmon to the royal household.
The royal household does not provide comment on why companies are added or removed from the list, but it comes shortly after footage released by the Green Britain Foundation showed workers beating fish to death at its Loch Harport site on the Isle of Skye.
The footage was obtained earlier this year and led the Soil Association to issue a critical non-compliance for inhumane killing and a major non-compliance for record-keeping failures at the organic-certified site.
“It’s good to see the King, an environmentalist, distancing himself from Mowi,” said Dale Vince, director of the Green Britain Foundation. “A firm with a history of pollution and animal abuse has no place holding a royal seal of approval.
“This decision places animal welfare and environmental responsibility firmly before corporate PR – we need more organisations to follow King Charles’ lead.”
When approached for comment, Mowi said it was “honoured to have held the royal warrant”.
The decision from the household was also supported by charity WildFish, which had contacted the Royal Warrant Holders Association in June to query the process for awarding Mowi the warrant.
“It is a travesty that any salmon farming company was ever granted a royal warrant,” said Nick Underdown, Scotland director of the charity. “Salmon farming is inherently unsustainable and wholly at odds with the values that the King himself has long championed.”
He repeated calls from the Green Britain Foundation for households and other businesses to take farmed salmon off their menus.
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