Young’s Seafood has underlined the importance of fish farming to the security of future fish supply and highlighted its approach with a new policy document entitled: “Why we believe fish farming is a good thing.”

Fish farming – or aquaculture – is already the world’s fastest-growing food production industry, with consistent growth of around 9% a year every year since 1975. Already around 45% of global fish supply is from farmed sources.

The new policy highlights the fact that fish farming will become even more important in the next ten years given escalating world food demand, the increased cost of oil, expanding populations and the fact that wild fisheries are a limited resource.

Mike Parker, deputy chief executive of Young’s parent company, Foodvest, says, “We felt it was important to emphasise our positive approach to aquaculture at a time when the global food industry is facing some major challenges and fish is under particular pressure. Fish is a healthy and natural source of protein – the only way for it to remain readily available to everyone is through the increased use of responsible aquaculture.”

He added, “Recent news that the rising cost of oil is threatening to curtail wild fishing effort makes this issue even more relevant. With so many pressures on food supply, without aquaculture we could very quickly reach a situation where fish was a food beyond the reach of all but the richest consumers.”

The new policy applies to all companies in the Foodvest Group. In the UK it is freely available from the Young’s website at www.youngsseafood.co.uk.

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Notes for editors
Young’s is Britain’s most famous name in fish and the UK branded seafood business of the Foodvest Group. Foodvest is a £1.1BN, independently-owned European seafood and frozen food business comprised of Young’s and The Seafood Company in the UK, together with Findus in Scandinavia and France.

Foodvest as a whole is an award-winning* leader in responsible seafood sourcing with its pioneering ‘Fish for Life approach.’ Within this, Young’s is also the UK market leader in products made using Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) accredited fish from sustainable sources.

Nearly 39% of all Foodvest Group fish purchases are from aquaculture, the most important being salmon and shrimp, but with an ever expanding portfolio of species including sea bass and sea bream from the Mediterranean and Pangasius (basa) from Vietnam.

* Recent awards for Fish for Life include:
• Business Commitment to the Environment ‘Big Tick’ Award 2008
• Seafish Award for Outstanding Achievement, 2007
• IGD Award for Environmental Sustainability, 2007