RSPCA president urges Wagamama to stop using salmon farms
Salmon farms have also been found to be responsible for mass fish die offs due to overcrowding and disease, which pose a threat to wild fish populations
RSPCA president, TV presenter and conservationist, Chris Packham, has joined over 100,000 people calling for Wagamama to drop farmed salmon from its menu.
This comes after campaign groups, Feedback and WildFish, noted the damage inflicted by farmed salmon on the environment, with “waste food, pesticides and faeces flowing from salmon farms into the surrounding marine ecosystems”.
It claims salmon farms have also been found to be responsible for mass fish die offs due to overcrowding and disease, posing a threat to wild fish populations from sea lice parasites and escapees.
The campaign groups have been critical of Wagamama for claiming to ‘tread softly’ as a business, while “refusing to discuss its decision to put farmed salmon on its menus”.
In Packham’s call for action, he has highlighted the environmental and animal welfare issues linked with salmon farming and has cited Feedback’s Blue Empire report that highlighted the social injustice of taking wild fish from regions in West Africa to feed salmon in the Global North.
According to the report, which was published earlier this year, this has caused local fishing communities to go into “significant” decline.
While Wagamama has stated that as a company it is taking action to “tread more lightly on the earth” as part of its philosophy of kaizen (which means ‘continuous improvement’ in Japanese), campaign groups say the restaurant chain has so far failed to clarify its farmed salmon sourcing policy and continues to “ignore calls to remove farmed salmon from its menus”.
Packham said: “Farmed salmon is an environmental and social disaster. It’s time for Wagamama to step up to their sustainability credentials and take farmed salmon off the menu.”
Rachel Mulrenan, director of WildFish Scotland, added: “The damage being done by open-net salmon farming to our environment, the health and welfare of wild and farmed fish, and global communities is clear to see.
“If Wagamama is truly committed to “an earth positive future” then it too must commit to taking farmed salmon off its menu.”
A Wagamama spokesperson said: “Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, including how we source from and work with our suppliers, which is why all our salmon is sustainably sourced from Scottish and Norwegian fisheries that do not use feed from West Africa.
“These fisheries are accredited by GlobalG.A.P., the world’s leading standard for seafood farmed with care. They set strict requirements for responsible seafood farming that require producers to farm with care for fish, the environment and the people on and around the farm.”
They added: “We regularly ensure that all our suppliers adhere to our strict sourcing policy, as well as conducting routine audits and site visits to verify compliance, traceability and transparency. Our current procurement process means that by the end of 2024 all future Wagamama salmon will be sourced only from Scottish fisheries, which are in addition RSPCA accredited.”
