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- Producing Healthy Salmon Podcast - Episode 1
Producing Healthy Salmon Podcast - Episode 1
In the first episode, we spoke to Aisla Jones, Fisheries and Aquaculture Manager at Co-op, to hear how the retailer is making sure sustainable, high welfare salmon is appearing on their shelves.
“Scottish salmon is the UK’s biggest food export and is supplied to more than 50 countries. As well as this, it’s also extremely important to the domestic market – both through retail and food service,” explains Aisla.
"Last year we saw an increase demand for food in retail, and Co-op fish sales increased by about 11% in volume, with salmon fillets being the most popular fish item."
Although we have seen an increase in demand for salmon, Aisla explained that producing salmon to high welfare standards is still a key priority for both the retailer and producers.
Certification and assurance schemes are really important for us at Co-op and they are part of our risk assessment process which we carry out on all of our seafood supply chains. It’s really important to have this third-party verification that the fish farms we are sourcing from are meeting specific requirements around health and welfare, and also environmental standards.
As sustainability continues to be a hot topic with consumers, this also continues to be a key area of focus for Co-op.
“At our AGM last year, 99% of our members voted for us to continue working on responsible sourcing of fish through our Future of Food programme. Customers are becoming increasingly interested in where their food comes from, particularly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and there’s also a focus in the media on improving environmental sustainability,” adds Aisla.
To help improve sustainability, as well as using third party certification schemes, Co-op also collect KPIs from their salmon supply chain and are looking regularly at health and welfare, and environmental, challenges.
“We will continue to work with our suppliers to address any challenges identified, so that we can work together to drive continuous improvement across the whole industry.”
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