Organic cod farm scheme a £40m disaster

The Guardian (UK), by Severin Carrell: A scheme to rear organic cod in Scottish fish farms - touted as the ethical answer to a global crisis in fish stocks - has ended after losing £40m in three years. The world's first attempt to farm organic cod, No Catch fish, was sold as a breakthrough in sustainable fisheries. Its costly marketing campaign boasted it would "save the planet" and claimed celebrities such as Demi Moore had savoured its ethically-conscious produce.

But administrators Grant Thornton, brought in this year to rescue the Shetland-based business, admitted that organic cod farming had been a financial disaster and had no realistic chance of succeeding. It has sold the firm's fish-farming business to two Norwegian-owned companies, which will begin producing organic salmon in Shetland's coastal waters. Its last supplies of cod - about 3,400 tonnes - will be sold at less than a 10th of their original prices in the shops....

Cod drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman, Wikimedia Commons