Marks & Spencer claim their Scottish salmon is ‘responsibly sourced from crystal-clear Scottish coastal waters’ and raised to higher welfare standards. The truth is, almost all Scottish salmon sold in UK supermarkets is factory farmed. In the often dirty, crowded pens, sea lice thrive and eat the fish alive, stripping away chunks of flesh and leaving them with damaged and missing eyes.
Marks and Spencer’s is supplied by Cooke Aquaculture and Scottish Sea Farms, Scotland’s second-largest salmon farm, though it is not actually Scottish but Norwegian. It is also quite possibly the worst company Scotland has ever had the misfortune to be saddled with and is linked to animal suffering, shady deals, and toxic pollution.
The disease and infestations that are rife on its farms would put anyone off eating the fish, but discharging toxic chemicals, including carcinogenic formaldehyde, into the lochs and shooting seals in the face is just nasty. It doesn’t seem to matter how many environmental laws this company breaks, or how many times it has been found to have provided inaccurate information to the authorities, or even that it hires lawyers to silence its critics; this is a company that just does not get fined.
Don’t let M&S get away with it.