Restaurants, caterers, local authorities, not-for-profit organisations and businesses around the world have joined forces with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to launch the first Sustainable Seafood Lunch. The event will take place at lunch time (local time) on 30 September 2009 around the globe – from New Zealand to the United States. The Sustainable Seafood Lunch highlights the efforts taken by fisheries and the seafood industry around the world to create a global market for sustainably caught fish and celebrates the growing availability of sustainable seafood choices worldwide.
Rupert Howes, MSC Chief Executive, comments: “The Sustainable Seafood Lunch is a great opportunity for those who are not already familiar with the MSC programme to learn about our work and the leadership of our partners and to look for, choose and enjoy independently certified sustainable seafood. Consumers buying sustainable seafood carrying the blue MSC eco-label play an important role in both rewarding and also encouraging sustainable fishing practices around the world.”
As the number of MSC-certified, sustainable products continues to rise, and an increasing number of businesses offer MSC-certified, sustainable choices, it has never been so easy to make a sustainable choice – be it in a restaurant or catering outlet at work or in schools, when buying fish for home cooking or picking up a sandwich on the run.
First commitments from organisations supporting the event include the Dutch airline KLM who will be offering an MSC-certified, sustainable seafood option on all their intercontinental flights from Amsterdam on the day. In the UK close to one million children will have a Sustainable Seafood Lunch option offered to them by their school canteen on the day, including 260 schools catered by Sodexo. Michelin Star Chef Raymond Blanc is already designing his special Sustainable Seafood Lunch menu to be served in his restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. Furthermore, MSC certified restaurants, canteens and sandwich shops around the world will be offering MSC-certified sustainable lunch options. These include University of Notre Dame in the U.S.; Fifteen Amsterdam, Umoja, ‘t Feithuis, De Parel van Vreeswijk, te Pas, Hotel Theater Figi, Slot Zeist and various MSC-certified Sodexo canteens in the Netherlands; Anstruther Fish Bar in Scotland; Duke of Cambridge and Wahaca in London and Moshi Moshi in Brighton and London, as well as several outlets catered by Compass including Bristol Zoo and Oxford Brookes University.
Laura Stewart, MSC Foodservice and Scotland Manager says: “We were already excited about this lunch and the response we have received from our partners across the supply chain simply blew us away. Many more of our partners are in the process of planning events and I can only encourage everybody interested in being part of the event to get in touch.”
