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Today's is : Thursday, 17 May 2012
Food programme
When the artist Jake Tilson staged his net of eels exhibition he realised he could never eat them again – eels were not sustainable which got him wondering how sustainable was fish generally. To find out Jake visited the worlds largest gathering of the seafood community from scientists to cooks at the Seaweb Seafood summit in Paris.

 Extract of show  - Charles Redfern interview.

 

Jake Tilson: "...maybe it is that lack of leadership which has inspired so many of the people I met to come up with their own solutions Charles Redfern launched his superior tinned fish product Fish4Ever 10 years ago its remit from the beginning was sustainability."

 

Charles Redfern: “Because we originated in the organic sector sustainability is part and parcel of what our sector has done for a very long long time so for us  we saw an opportunity in canned fish but it was clear that sustainability would need to be a key message.”

 

JT: "One of the ways I am approaching this is as a domestic cook and one thing that is certainly part of my storecupboard is canned fish."

 

CR: “I am glad to hear it because in England we have I think a reputation of a) not cooking much anyway and b) certainly not cooking with canned fish. And I think that has been part of the problem on the quality side, that if you are not using canned fish to make nice dishes with, you are not going to be too bothered about the quality. Alot of the tuna for example that’s used is used with mayonnaise and therefore the taste isn’t that good. Whereas in Southern Europe, for example, they will use it in salads, they will use it in pasta sauces, they will use it straight from a jar as a tapas or as a starter, therefore their quality reputations are very good. And that’s what we are trying to promote and so we have lots of recipe tips.  I will give you some now if you want or if not you can look on the web."

 

Sounds of both men Laughing.

 

 JT: "So there is a mixture of being sustainable but also as a quality product as much as anything else."

 

CR:"Yes and sometimes if you supposing I was preparing a list of arguments for quality and a list of arguments for sustainability it is surprising how often you end up in the same place with the same sort of arguments.  Looking at small careful fishing in day boats, where it is dropped straight to the cannery, where the cannery has got high manual content and if you are paying for a better product it will be better made. It is not always – lets not exaggerate - quality doesn’t always equate with sustainability but a lot of the arguments are similar."