Policy Areas
Fish
We seek to promote Sustainable Sourcing of Fish and Protection of indigenous, traditional fishing industries through:
- Promotion of fish in season
- Promotion of fish breeds that are less used and more plentiful, and conservation of fish under threat
- Knowledge of origin of fish
- Responsible fishing methods
- Development of sustainability/eco-labels which would guarantee the above
- Development of environmentally sound fish-farming
- Measures to protect the livelihoods of small, in-shore fishing boats and traditional fishing communities
Seasonality & Sustainable Fish
We have met with BIM (Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Irish Sea Fisheries Board and requested that a fish seasonality calendar or seasonal sourcing guidelines specific to Ireland be developed and that this information be provided to chefs, as well as retailers and consumers. Euro-toques would like to have access to information about fish breeds which are not threatened and perhaps less commercially popular so that we could encourage our members to consider these as alternatives to over-fished varieties.
Origin, Quality & In-shore Fishing
Determining the real origin of fish and the methods used to catch it is extremely difficult. Fish which had been imported and then processed in Ireland, can be labelled as Irish. There is a huge amount of fish being imported into this country, much of which has been produced or caught using methods that would certainly not be considered acceptable here.
In addition much of the fish which is landed in Ireland comes from huge trawlers which are at sea for several weeks, holding their catch on ice, so although it can be sold as �fresh� fish it may be far from it. Lack of skills on many of these boats mean that fish is often incorrectly handled. Some of these trawlers have become veritable �factories on the sea�, fully processing fish before it ever reaches the shore; processing fish as soon as it is caught may be a good idea for big industry, but it is not want chefs want. Our chefs are looking for high quality, sustainably caught, fresh local fish. We believe the only way of guaranteeing this is to work directly with local in-shore fishing boats who have voluntarily committed to environmental and handling practices about legislative requirements.
Community Fishing Initiatives
To this end we have recently begun to speak directly to in-shore fishermen to develop local initiatives where restaurants will source directly from local fishing boats. |
