The Ethical Seafood Company on the Isle of Mull turned to home delivery of items like mussels and oysters during lockdowns and supplied top restaurants with hand dived scallops.
A squeeze of lemon on Bentley s lobster
Fish stocks are not the only thing in the waters of the British Isles facing a sustainability crisis. The ban on live shellfish exports to the European Union threatens to devastate the UK fishing industry.
The EU rules specifically apply to live bivalve molluscs such as mussels, oysters, scallops, cockles and clams. The industry is worth around £12m a year, which might be small fry to the UK economy as a whole but is of critical value to the communities who rely on the sea for their livelihoods.
Fish exports overall have been hit hard by Brexit. Delays caused by red tape have forced the price of British fish and seafood to plummet as European buyers refuse to pay top dollar for produce that is not as fresh as they would wish. What’s more, with restaurants closed until at least the middle of April, a significant chunk of domestic sales has disappeared alongside the export market. One bright spot, though, is that the suppliers who wou