Sushi CAN be ethical

You can have your fish and eat it. Just watch your portion size.

The very idea of an ethical sushi bar, when I first heard of one, made me laugh.  Nice try, I thought, trying to help the punters scoff your endangered fish guilt-free. 

Everyone knows that fish stocks are dwindling. If they didn’t before, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight series for Channel 4 last month should have enlightened them. 

Sushi is growing in popularity

But sushi sales are soaring in the UK. New sushi bars are becoming high street fixtures. They are often of the traditional conveyor belt type, where small plates of sushi  - cooked rice with a topping, usually fish – and sashimi – raw slices of fish – chug along for customers to help themselves. 

And this isn’t just in the capital. Our hunger for Japanese food – light, tasty and healthy – is spreading across the country. The Yo! Sushi chain has restaurants up and down the UK and in Dublin, and is growing. 

Can sushi be ethical?

Still, I was intrigued by the idea of ethical sushi. Because I love the stuff.  Why does everything delicious have to come with such a high price? It pains me to have to be so picky about where my next nigiri’s coming from. Last time I went for the vegetarian bento box, I got a pile of soggy, deep-fried tofu and had to watch, dribbling, as my friends ate their melt-in-the-mouth slabs of raw salmon and tuna. 

Tsuru Sushi is one such ethical Japanese restaurant. Co-owner Emma Reynolds tells me she operates an ethical and transparent sourcing policy for all the fish used. The tuna is pole and line caught in the Indian Ocean. The salmon comes from Scotland and the mackerel from different MSC-certified fisheries. 

The bluefin story

“I would never serve bluefin tuna,” she says. “There’s no reason to be killing off a species for short-lived human satisfaction.” 

Other chains, notably Itsu and Feng Sushi also have decent sourcing policies. 

Sushi comes in small portions

But Emma poses a more thoughtful spin on the sushi-eating debate. “In terms of volume,” she points out, “the amount of fish in a sushi box is not huge. Ten slices of fish are between 100g and 150g. The average piece of cod in a fish and chip shop would be a couple of times that.” 

Tsuru Sushi’s prices, when it opened three years ago, were set with the sustainable sourcing policy in mind. Emma believes that the growing number of ethical sushi joints is good for the industry. “It makes it difficult for others not to have a decent sourcing policy.” 

She once asked customers whether they would be willing to pay 20 pence more for a chicken dish made with poultry raised in high welfare standards, and only two out of 100 said no. 

So it turns out the sushi debate is pretty similar to other food – choose yours wisely, and focus on quality and provenance. Lots of sushi bars use machines to make their sushi now, though Tsuru Sushi’s is all done by hand. 

Like any fast food, if you eat cheap sushi, the fish is likely to be poor quality and be dubious. And like any food, if you eat too much of it, there’ll likely be an impact on stocks – and then sushi would become too expensive. Let’s keep it on the menu for now. 

Tsuru Sushi has restaurants in London’s Bankside, Bishopsgate, and Mansion House.

Also worth your attention:

Henry Dimbleby’s ceviche

The Story of Sushi, Trevor Corson

The Sustainable Restaurant Association

The End of the Line: How overfishing is changing the world and the way we eat, Charles Clover 

Thanks to Tsuru Sushi for the photo.