Press release – Abel & Cole accused of fooling customers over ‘greenwashing’ salmon switch

Organic food delivery service Abel & Cole is misleading its customers with claims that a switch to salmon produced in land-based tanks is a guilt-free way to enjoy fish, according to the experts at charity Foodrise as they urge the business to tell the truth over environmental harms.

Abel & Cole has now stopped selling salmon reared in marine cages due to “increasing welfare and environment risks”. But its shift to salmon produced in land-based factory farms – which it calls a “trailblazing alternative” and “an even better solution than organic” – carries a fresh wave of environmental and ethical harms .

Land-based salmon farms are opening up a new front in the industry’s aggressive expansion, which is fuelling the continued extraction of wild fish used in feed, harming biodiversity and taking food from coastal communities. There are also issues with technology failures leading to major mortality events where thousands of fish die.

Contact Abel & Cole asking them to tell the truth and stop supporting factory fish farming.

Abel & Cole is being urged to tell the truth to its customers and develop a transition plan away from selling all farmed salmon. The charity believes Abel & Cole’s greenwashing justification for selling salmon produced on land will open the floodgates for other companies to follow suit – resulting in exponential growth of this new frontier of factory farming.

Foodrise has written to Abel & Cole raising its concerns but has yet to receive a response. It has also published a briefing Fish out of water: Pulling the plug on land-based salmon farms outlining the environmental and ethical impacts. The briefing was published jointly with French campaign group Seastemik and endorsed by 22 organisations including Greenpeace Africa, Green Britain Foundation, Communities Against Factory Farming and World Animal Protection.

This comes as the UK’s first land-based industrial salmon farm was given the greenlight in Cleethorpes last year. While a decision on a further factory in land-locked Wiltshire is currently being considered by the local council.

There has been significant local push back against these plans with hundreds of objections lodged against the industrial scale factory farms in the local councils’ consultation periods.

Abel & Cole’s website claims land-based salmon is ‘responsibly farmed’ and ‘limits environmental harm and increases welfare’. But the reality is that salmon produced on land in tanks is an ethical and environmental problem driving the extraction of wild caught fish, often taken from food insecure regions like West Africa, for feed and shocking animal welfare conditions.

Misled customers

The company’s website is full of examples of customers being completely misled by Abel & Cole’s claims, including “we’ve not eaten salmon for 5 years now thankfully this responsibly farmed salmon, juicy and very tasty” and “reassuring to know that these salmon are not damaging the wild fish population”.

Customers shop with Abel & Cole because of its commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing – but this isn’t the reality for its land-based salmon.

Natasha Hurley, Deputy Director at Foodrise, said: “Abel & Cole is failing its customers by selling them salmon farmed on land. We are deeply concerned that this move will open the floodgates on demand for land-based salmon. The reality is that this form of industrial salmon farming is fuelling devastation to wild fish populations, continued food colonialism and has profound impacts on animal welfare.

“Customers shop with Abel & Cole because it is a sustainable business which purports to care about people and planet. That’s why Abel & Cole must act to remove the greenwashing claims from its website and urgently develop a transition plan away from selling farmed salmon.”

Denise Long, an Abel & Cole customer from Southampton, said: “I regularly shop with Abel & Cole and I’m utterly appalled that they would seek to profit from such awful factory farming. The consequences for the welfare of thousands of fish and the environmental impacts don’t bear thinking about. If a product can’t be sourced ethically and sustainably, then a company such as Abel & Cole should stop selling it altogether. If they continue to sell salmon produced in this way, then I will have no choice but to withdraw my custom.”

Contact Abel & Cole directly 

Write to Abel & Cole using our email template asking them to tell the truth and stop supporting factory fish farming.