WL Meets: Caroline Bennett, raising the standard for sustainable fishing

Buying traceable fish caught in a low impact way which pays and treats fishermen fairly is difficult, perhaps even more so than with farmed produce.  

Caroline Bennett, founder of ethical fishermen collective Sole of Discretion in Plymouth, set up her fish delivery business in 2016 because of this exact conundrum: she couldn’t find any fish that met these criteria.  

Globally, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the world’s authority on fisheries, 34.2% of all fisheries are overfished.

The UK is by no means exempt – with 27% of UK’s commercial fish populations “overfished to the point of having critically low population sizes” according to Oceana’s 2025 report. 

So, how can a consumer shop more sustainably for fish in the supermarket? “I just don’t think you can,” she responds. “Supermarkets are not buying off low-impact high social net vessels because they just don’t operate that way. 

“They buy on volume. Large trawlers and boats are remunerated for how much fish they land. So there’s no incentive to say ‘shall we leave that fish in the sea for tomorrow?’ ”

To many in the agricultural sector this “economies of scale” supermarket model of high volume, low margins, and hidden socio-environmental costs embedded in cheap prices sounds all too familiar. 

But fishing can be the wild west – out of sight and out of mind – and is far less regulated and closely monitored than agriculture.

One in five fish globally are said to be caught illegally or go unreported, according to the FAO’s alarming conclusions, and forced labour and human trafficking in fisheries are also major global issues in the industry, including in the UK.

Sole of Discretion’s ethos is that all fish is 100% traceable to fishermen and boat, uses only small day boats less than 10 metres in length, pays and treats fishermen fairly, and uses low-impact methods – which differ depending on the fish type. 

They’re trying to tip the balance in favour of smaller fishing vessels (under 10 metres), which, despite making up 80% of the UK’s fishing fleet, only receive 4% of the UK’s overall fishing quota. 

They only sell fish that is locally landed by day boats between Helford and Eastbourne, but also work with a handful of small-scale fishermen outside of the UK, and partner with Sea Sisters for canned fish goods.

Often before the rest of the world wakes up, their fishermen will text Sole of Discretion asking them for an approximate amount of fish they’d like and what they catch is based on demand. These fishermen will usually be both owner and skipper of their boats – unlike large vessels often owned by big companies or wealthy individuals.  

Fish is processed down at Plymouth Harbour, where they have experimented with perfect specification for consumers: skin on, skin off, portion size, frozen or not frozen. 

Sole of Discretion then sells onto consumers individually, as well as delis and organic food stores including Bristol’s Better Food, producing close to no waste by fishing based on demand and freezing catch. 

The secret of Sole of Discretion is to not obsess over a set list of supposedly sustainable fish species but instead focus on catch method. 

“Rather than say to people stop eating cod and eat mackerel, I never say that. I’m not fixated about species at all, I am however fixated about the method that took it out of the sea,” Caroline says. “We don’t look at stock – we’ll take a wrasse or a pollack [not to be confused with pollock which is commercially overfished], and even though that’s not what we’re fishing we’ll honour that fish’s life and turn it into nutritious bits of protein,” she adds.

For this reason and because of the small scale, small boat fishing has almost no bycatch, unlike the estimated 10 million tonnes worth of bycatch annually from large-scale trawling. 

This priority list is quite opposite to well-known marine certification label MSC (Marine Stewardship Council), the blue tick label on fish designed for the industrial fishing industry by Unilever, which focuses solely on fish stocks but not on catch method.

MSC still allows methods such as dredging and deep-bottom trawling under their eco-label, which Caroline, alongside research and activist groups such as Opeanseas, consider as deeply damaging to the seabed, fish stocks and other parts of the ecosystem.

A spokesperson for MSC responded: “The MSC programme is open to all types of wild-capture fisheries that meet our scope and the requirements of the  MSC Fisheries Standard, regardless of size, location or type of fishing gear used. This includes demonstrating that they are not causing serious or irreversible harm to the structure and function of seafloor habitats, and that bycatch is minimised.” 

Low-impact small scale alternatives catch methods used at Sole of Discretion vary from static nets, handlines, and pots – depending on fish variety. Take the disco method, which uses LED lights in pots to gently lure in scallops – an alternative to scallop trawling.

Sole of Discretion is trying to encourage more local fish caught by their fishermen collective of around 12 boats (varying slightly depending on the season). 

But creating the appetite for local highlights like gurnards, lemons soles and red mullets isn’t always easy when 80% of fish that we eat in the UK is made up of just five fish types: cod, haddock, salmon, tuna, and prawns. 

The majority of these fishy five are imported to meet demand year-round, and will typically be trawled or farmed (in the case of salmon) at mass scale, which also makes these generally cheaper species than the UK’s more prime diverse market. 

Similar to the model around sustainable and responsible meat consumption, Caroline advocates for eating less fish that is better quality, and paying a bit more for it. 

“I’m comparing my fish to an organically-reared grass-fed cow rather than the meat you’d find in processed food. And on that definition they just can’t compete.”

Where Sole of Discretion does partner with non-UK fishermen for a handful of species, they are uncompromising and methodical in maintaining traceability. It took them four years to establish a relationship with the Alaskan fishermen collective where they source their salmon, but they are now able to import wild line-caught Coho and Keta salmon that is traceable to boat and fishermen.

As you’d expect, Caroline does not source or sell farmed salmon, however “sustainable” it is deemed to be, and irrespective of whether or not it is certified organic. “The salmon farming industry is essentially robbing poor developing countries’ only source of protein to feed salmon farms. It’s just morally bankrupt to be doing it. I really oppose farmed aquaculture when it’s to do with carnivorous fish.”

The sustainable fish consumer’s dream would be eating only abundant local species, in season, that have been caught using a low-impact method. But, just as in agriculture, that perfect trio is hard to realise and the lack of meaningful fish certification and labelling makes it even harder unless you know who you’re buying from.  

“So much is built on trust. But how can you label trust?” asks Caroline.

Meanwhile, wild small-scale fishing continues to come with serious challenges, including changeable weather systems linked to climate change; it’s telling that Sole of Discretion’s fishermen could not get out on the water until June 11 this year, due to ongoing storms and bad weather. Prices also fluctuate with the market – and when forced to hike up the price of a certain fish type, as happened with pollock this year, some customers have no choice but to back out and cancel orders.

Given these challenges, to what extent is Sole of Discretion’s sustainable model also scaleable?

“I like the fact that nature defines the scale we can grow to. And that scale is determined by the volume of fish that the small scale boats land into Plymouth.”

If they were to grow, they hope to conjoin with other fishing communities along the UK, encouraging them to use the same low-impact methods as themselves. 

For now, they continue to seek and connect the consumers and fishermen who want quality fish without the highest cost to environment.