Who we are and what we do
This page has information on:
Discover our vision for the next five years with our 2023-2028 Corporate Plan.
You can download the document below or explore the plan in an interactive video at www.seafish.org/corporate-plan.
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We’re here to give the UK seafood sector the support it needs to thrive. When the seafood industry thrives, the whole nation thrives because:
- Seafood is packed full of nutrition;
- When managed responsibly, seafood is sustainable;
- The seafood industry creates long-term job opportunities and drives business prosperity and,
- It builds and sustains communities.
We work with the seafood industry right across the UK from Shetland in the north to Cornwall in the south.
We work with fishing vessels and their crew, seafood processing businesses, aquaculture producers, and restaurants and fishmongers reliant on the industry and the top-quality seafood we fish, farm and process.
Our unique, non-competitive position means we work in partnership with stakeholders across the UK to navigate challenges and seize opportunities.
Our work makes a huge difference. It keeps fishermen safe, supports sustainable sourcing, helps businesses work better and boosts the nation’s health.
We tackle everything from research to campaigns and insights to training. Whatever we can do to give our industry the support it needs to thrive
Over the next five years, our priorities for the seafood industry are:
- Ensuring a Safe and Skilled Workforce
- Facilitating and promoting International Trade
- Responding to the Climate Change emergency
- Improving Fisheries Management
- Enabling Supply Chain Resilience
- Improving Data, Insight, and Innovation to support our priority work areas and to deliver products and services directly to business.
Across these priority work areas, we will actively scan the landscape for reputational risks and proactively plan responses to help mitigate impacts and champion Industry Reputation.
Read our Corporate Plan for 2023-2028 which we published in April 2023.
You can also read our key focuses for the year ahead in our 2023-2024 Annual Plan.
We are a small organisation and assessing the contribution we make can be difficult but we will measure our impact by observing the performance of the industry based on the following measures:
- Contribution seafood makes to UK gross domestic product increases.
- Volume of seafood exports increases.
- Increase on proportion of seafood imports that are destined for value added processing
- Halt the current declining trend in seafood consumption.
- Volume of shellfish aquaculture produced across the UK increases.
- Decline in carbon emissions from the UK seafood sector (catching, aquaculture and processing).
- Volume of seafood landed into UK ports increases.
- Percentage of marine fish stocks (of UK interest) with biomass al levels that maintain full reproductive capacity increases.
- Number of seafood businesses with access to sufficient, skilled labour increases.
- Year on year decline in the number of preventable incidents on fishing vessels.
- Positive media coverage on the seafood industry increases year on year (baseline to be set in 2023).
- Positive stakeholder sentiment about Seafish increases year on year (baseline to be set in 2023).
Watch our video below for a few highlights of our last five year corporate plan. You can also read about the impact of our recent work on our Supported by Seafish web page or in our most recent Annual Report.
We were set up by the Fisheries Act 1981 and our sponsor is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). We also work with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolved administrations.
We have around 85 staff across the UK with a range of fisheries and seafood knowledge and expertise. We have offices in Edinburgh and Grimsby. We have regional managers based near some of the main fishing and seafood hubs around the UK.
Our Executive Team leads our work and is overseen by the Seafish Board.
Most of our funding comes from a levy on the first sale of seafood products in the UK. This includes imported seafood. Go to our Seafish Levy page to find out who pays the levy, which products are due levy and how to pay the levy.
We fund some projects with money from UK fisheries funding schemes.
Go to our Contact Us page to get in touch with us and find out how we can support you.
Following our Strategic Review in 2021, we are consulting with the industry on changes to the Seafish levy. These will be the first changes since 1999 and will help us to deliver the support the industry wants from us.
Find out more on our Levy Consultation page.