Provenance and Sustainability of Crevettes

Currently Unsustainable and So We Do Not Offer for Sale

We have become increasingly conscious that, as a UK based business, we have very little visibility or control over how Crevettes are farmed and harvested.

There have been a number of recent high-profile television documentaries, which have raised some serious doubts regarding the sustainability and the integrity of the way these products are farmed. We have investigated, as much as we have been able, what practices are standard throughout this industry, and the degree to which independent regulating bodies are able to measure and enforce controls on producers. Unable to satisfy our concerns, we have therefore taken the difficult decision to stop sourcing this extremely popular product, until such time as we are confident in guaranteeing supply of a genuinely sustainable Crevette.

The main reasons behind our decision to stop selling Crevettes can be summarised below:

  1. They are imported from South East Asia and South America, with little visibility of competent regulation and evidence showing that the farming methods used are environmentally damaging and poorly managed. For example, large swathes of environmentally important mangrove swamps have been destroyed due to the farming of Crevettes.

  2. The Crevettes are fed meal produced from ‘trash fish’ which is caught using destructive fishing methods in poorly regulated fisheries. The suppliers of ‘trash fish’ are intrinsically linked to slave labour, with ‘ghost ships’ crewed by unpaid men held against their will.

  3. During the farming process, a method called ‘eyestalk ablation’ is commonly used on female Crevettes. This is a process by which one of the Crevette’s eyes is either sliced, or cut out completely, in order to encourage spawning. We have not been able to find a source that can guarantee that this practice is not used.

I hope you understand and support our decision.

We offer a full range of sustainable seafood, including: both shell-on and peeled Coldwater Atlantic Prawns; Cornish Lobster; Cornish Crab; Dive-Caught Scallops; and Scottish Langoustines.

These products, along with more detail regarding provenance and sustainability can be seen on our site here

If you have any questions or comments regarding this, please do not hesitate to email us at [email protected].