Seafood Week - and today it is 'hail the hake' day!

At 6am it's a dark enough start to the mornings in October but that doesn't stop the business of fishing which goes on 24/7 in a port like Newlyn...

Of course hake isn't the only fish...

 the netter Britannia V landed on the market this morning... 

amongst the rest of the fish landed were a dozen or so monk cheeks...

and a pair of decent sized cod.

At the start of every hake trip each of the Newlyn hake netters has to take on board four or five tons of flake ice...

it's the same ice is used to ice the harbour boxes when the fish is presented for auction...

in order to meet the standards required by the MSC to maintain the quality of Cornish Certified hake...

so that the fleet of 15 certified boats, of which the Britannia V is one, can begin the chain of custody that is required in order to let buyers know that the hake caught meets the stringent requirements necessary, from the kind and size of nets employed, the pingers set with the nest to ensure that by-catches of dolphins and porpoises are a thing of the past to how the fish are gutted, iced and boxed at sea... 

once the fish have been sold they are stacked...

and whisked away to the processors for packing in super-insulated polystyrene boxes for distribution to fish merchants and fishmongers the length and breadth of the UK...

like this 6 kilo plus beauty safe in the hands of the Chelsea Fishmonger, young Rex Goldmsith!

Seafood Week 2018 - 5th-12th October

Debbie Cook – The Catch blog, September 2018

Seafood Week will run from 5th to 12th October this year.  We've been talking about this a lot in the last few months so hopefully that's not news to you.

Regardless of whether you have engaged in Seafood Week before; this year you really do need to take a look at what's going on.  We've shaken up everything we've done before; there's a whole new branding and lots of new images, the toolkit for businesses to use has been redeveloped with lots of input from our stakeholders in foodservice; most of the major retailers are involved and have signed up to various activities; we have bus adverts running on public transport in many major cities across the UK, we have an advertising campaign running on the London Tube, we have Restaurant Rockstars - fabulous chefs leading the way on social media and many, many more activities running across the UK.

The week itself on social media will look a bit like this:-

• Friday 5th October - Memorable Mackerel
• Saturday 6th October - Crazy About Crab
• Sunday 7th October - Mad About Mussels
• Monday 8th October - Fish and Chip Fanatic
• Tuesday 9th October - Sensational Scallops
• Wednesday 10th October - Loving Langoustines
• Thursday 11th October - Pick Up Some Plaice
• Friday 12th October - It's time for Tuna.

Look out too for national media coverage we've secured in the Daily Mail and also our radio campaign which will go out via the Classic, Smooth and Heart radio stations. Celebrity Dermot O'Leary will also be talking seafood on our behalf as will a number of other high profile influencers including Alice Living and Isaac Carew.

Please do engage in Seafood Week.  It's not too late to get involved - you can do so by contacting seafoodweek@seafish.co.uk .  Improving the consumption rates of seafood in the UK is an important focus for us at Seafish, it being the top area of work our stakeholders voted for us to focus on.  We're working on this year round with lots of other activities and campaigns.  You can find out more on Seafood Week at www.seafoodweek.co.uk and our other marketing activities at FishIsTheDish.co.uk.

At the very least please do get involved on Twitter using the following hashtags - #seafoodweek, #ratemyfish and #seafoodhero.

Together we can work towards encouraging the UK population to eat more seafood more often, getting them to the recommended two portions of seafood a week.