“Sustainable” Gets Slapped on Everything
You’ll see the word “sustainable” on packets of fish everywhere you look. Half the time it means something specific. The other half it’s marketing. Most shoppers genuinely want to do the right thing and the labels are confusing on purpose. So let’s strip it back and talk about what actually matters when you’re buying fish.
I’ve been doing this job a long time. We’ve been at the same shop on Bournemouth Road since the 1920s. In that time I’ve seen species disappear and come back, quotas change, boats vanish from harbours, and trends come and go. Here’s what I’ve learned about buying fish in a way you can actually feel alright about.
What Sustainable Fishing Actually Means
In plain English: catching fish at a rate that lets the stock keep going. Not too many, not too young, and using methods that don’t wreck the seabed or kill everything else by accident. That’s it. The rest is detail.
Where it gets messy is that every species, every fishing ground, and every method has its own picture. Cod in the North Sea is a different story to cod off Iceland. Hand-dived scallops are a different story to dredged ones. So a blanket “this is sustainable, this isn’t” doesn’t really hold up. You’ve got to look at the specifics.
Couple of useful pointers:
- MSC (Marine Stewardship Council): blue label. Decent indicator that the fishery has been independently checked. Not perfect but better than nothing.
- Pot-caught, hand-dived, line-caught: generally low-impact methods. The boat targets what it wants and leaves the rest alone.
- Trawled or dredged: depends massively on what they’re trawling for, where, and how. Some is fine. Some isn’t.
If you want the proper deep-dive, the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide ranks species 1 to 5. Worth a Google if you’re interested.
Why Local Really Does Matter
Right, here’s the bit that gets under-discussed. Even if a fish is technically sustainable, flying it across the world undoes a lot of the good work. A tuna caught in the Indian Ocean and flown into Poole has a footprint that nobody talks about because it’s hidden in the supply chain.
Buying local fish (meaning fish landed in the UK, ideally on the south or west coast) does a few things at once:
- Lower transport miles. Pretty obvious one. Fish caught off Weymouth and sold in Poole hasn’t crossed an ocean.
- Fresher. Fish that’s been on a plane for 36 hours then a lorry for another day isn’t the same fish as one landed at Brixham this morning. Texture, flavour, smell: all noticeably better when it’s local.
- It keeps small boats going. This is the one I care about. There are still proper small-day-boat fishermen working out of Weymouth, Lyme Regis, Poole and Brixham. Two or three blokes on a boat, going out at 4am, working hard. They survive because fishmongers like us buy from them. If nobody buys what the small boats land, that whole way of life goes.
- It supports the right species at the right time. Our seasonal calendar is built around what the local boats land throughout the year. Buy what’s in season locally and you’re already most of the way there.
What We Do at Parkstone
I’m not going to pretend everything in the shop is local. I get smoked salmon from Loch Duart in Scotland because they’re the best at what they do and they run their farms properly. I get prawns from suppliers I trust. Some species genuinely aren’t available off our coast, or aren’t in season, and the alternative is no fish at all.
But where I can buy local, I do. The whole mackerel on the counter in summer is caught off the Dorset coast. The lobsters are pot-caught from local boats. I know the skippers by name. The brown crab is from the same place. Bass in summer is wild-caught from the south coast.
If you ever want to know exactly where something came from, ask. I’d rather tell you than have you guess. That’s what a counter with a person behind it is for.
How to Shop in a Way You Can Feel Alright About
Couple of habits that go a long way:
- Eat what’s in season. Cuts out a lot of the heavy lifting. Have a look at the seasonal guide for a month-by-month rundown.
- Mix it up. If you only ever eat cod and salmon, you’re putting pressure on two species. There’s loads of underused fish out there. Mackerel, mussels, mid-week fish like coley or pollock, herring when it’s in. All brilliant, all good value, all sustainable.
- Buy from a fishmonger that’ll talk to you. Ask which sea it came from. Any decent fishmonger will tell you exactly where, when, and how. If they can’t, that’s a flag.
- Don’t be sniffy about frozen. Frozen-at-sea fish is caught, cleaned and locked in within hours of landing. We do a lot of frozen and it’s properly good quality.
Final Word
Sustainable fishing isn’t about feeling guilty or buying the most expensive thing in the shop. It’s about being a bit thoughtful, asking a couple of questions, and supporting the small boats and proper fishmongers that have kept this going for generations. Buy local where you can. Eat in season. Try something different now and then.
We’ve been at it on Bournemouth Road for over a hundred years and we’d quite like to be here for another hundred. The way to make that happen is the same as it’s always been: sell good fish, caught the right way, by the right people.
Come and have a chat. We’re open Tuesday to Saturday and the kettle’s usually on. Browse the shop or give us a ring on 01202 747661.