Cod Stocks On the Rise? - 40 years of Development
25/03/2021
Worried about the future of fish stocks? Don’t be. We’re in safe hands. Thanks to changes made to fishing practices in the early 90’s, regular Thorfish customers can be confident of regular supplies of sustainable cod and haddock for generations to come as Icelandic cod stocks reach new heights. Data collected over the last 40 years clearly shows just how successful Iceland’s fisheries have been in guaranteeing their future as a reliable supplier to the UK fish and chip industry. Please consider the facts below:-
- 1992 Cod Stocks est 553 000MT with 268 000MT caught (48%)
- 1996 Harvest Control Rule limits catch to 25% of stock
- 2006 Cod stocks increase to 700 000MT but still not high enough
- 2007 Harvest Control Rule reduces catch to 20% of total stock
- 2012 In just 5 yrs cod stocks smash through 1 000 000MT
- 2017 5 yrs more and stocks est 1 300 000MT+
- 2020 Icelandic fish stocks hit all time high
- 2020 Only 19% of the stock taken from the sea in 2020
You can be assured that the Thorfish cod you buy from XpressFish is sustainably sourced from MSC Certified fisheries and will be readily available for many years to come. We will not have to rely on hake, mackeral or pollock for our weekly fry. Whilst these alternatives are superb products in their own right, they will never replace the nation’s favourite of cod and haddock but most significantly, they won’t have to.
It’s very clear at XpressFish that the key point to ‘takeaway’ from the data above is that we shouldn’t believe anything printed in the newspapers about cod supply. It’s not hake news, it’s fake news!!