My preferred supermarket is Waitrose http://www.waitrose.com/ . They have recently aligned themselves to Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight http://www.fishfight.net/ ; a subject covered by the UK media and several TV programmes. The campaign is about the amount of perfectly edible fish thrown back into the sea dead because of archaic EU fishing quotas. He suggests that if we, the buying public were to buy and eat more of the lesser known fish, the so called “big five” fish – cod, haddock, salmon, prawns and tuna – would be less likely to be over fished.
There are a lot of well known people supporting this campaign http://www.fishfight.net/famous-fish-fighters/
My supermarket, Waitrose, recently bannered in their weekly magazine “Inspired by Hugh? Try a different catch today” and stated that they would make room for and stock species like: Cornish Pollack and Icelandic Dab and Whiting, as well as Hake and Sole. Not such strange fish, easy to cook and enjoyable to eat.
Now, I love Dab (a little like plump Plaice and tastier in my opinion) so I hot footed it to my local store brandishing a handful of cash and asked for some Dabs. The conversation went like this:
“Haven’t got any” “But your magazine says you are going to stock them” “They are not available in all stores” “but it doesn’t say that, you’re misleading your customers” “I’ve checked and we should have some on our next delivery, first thing Tuesday”
Tuesday came, I went to the store, and they still didn’t have any. “There’s a shortage” “but they’re in season there should be plenty” “come back Thursday”
I emailed the head office with my comments and received an auto response “we aim to investigate and respond within 72hours…” They didn’t. So I emailed them again, same thing
Five visits later, still no Dabs, I emailed them again and sent them a message on Twitter (@waitrose )
At last, a response, please phone customer services on 0800 188 884….., so I did, they weren’t very knowledgeable, but promised to investigate and get back to me.
They haven’t yet, I’m still waiting
My problem is this, we are overfishing certain species and there are just as tasty easily obtainable alternatives. The major supermarkets have huge purchasing power and should be able to make a difference. At the moment it seems it is all lip-service, bandwagon jumping for maximum publicity, publicly patting themselves on the back and then failing to deliver.
So today, Waitrose, you go into my Hall of Shame!
Oh dear! The last few times I have been in our largish Tesco store there have been plenty of dabs on the wet fish counter. Perhaps Waitrose need to know that you can take your custom elsewhere if they don’t come up with the goods!
Tesco, I know though, isn’t perfect …
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’