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Final minutes of the Common Language Group meeting held in London on 2 March 2017.

Throughout much of the UK, the native oyster remains in a severely depleted state in the wild, having suffered for two centuries with over-exploitation, pests, disease, pollution and harsh winters. The native oyster is a Biodiversity Action Plan Species. Native oyster beds can form a flourishing part of the ecosystem, with many associated species. A significant driver for restoration of native oyster beds should therefore be re-creating and conserving an ecological resource in order to re-establish a biotope that was once common and covered wide areas of the UK inshore seabed.

The report concerns UK seafood supply chains reliant on domestic and international wild capture seafood. It covers major impacts from key climate change drivers, from production to markets, and sets out major areas of adaptation action.

'Off-bottom’ trawling techniques for the sustainable exploitation of non-pressure stocks in Cornish inshore waters.

The aim of the project was to demonstrate an alternative fishing method commonly known as Outrigger trawling. This involved replacing the heavy beam trawls which are normally towed by the vessel with two demersal trawls, each trawl spread with its own set of trawl doors and towed from the derricks. This change alone will have a significant impact on bottom and gear drag. The steady increase in fuel prices was another driver for the fleet to look at alternatives to beam trawling. By adopting the outrigger fishing method vessels can reduce their fuel consumption enabling increased profitability and a reduction in environmental impact.

This report provides an in-depth review of brown crab issues as reported in the media. Issues covered include; ethics of production (clawing and harvesting); contamination; misrepresentation of pack messaging and stock status.

In the first phase of the project, high pressure processing studies were carried out on 11 species of fish and shellfish in order to determine whether there were any potential processing benefits for the UK seafood processing industry. The seafood products tested were nephrops, mussels, oysters, crab, cold water prawns, lobster, warm water prawns, unsmoked salmon, squid, mackerel and cod. The results from the first phase of the project can be found in report reference FMT/REP/95900/1. Five products were short-listed for further work; these were nephrops, warm water prawns, crab, salmon and cod. Trials on crab, warm water prawns and nephrops focused on large scale picking/peeling trials to determine whether product yield benefits identified in phase 1 were transferrable to larger scale processing. Trials on salmon and cod focused on pasteurisation and shelf-life evaluation.

A transcript of the video recording of the Marketing Masterclass on Maximising Social Media business. This event was recorded in March 2021

Final minutes of the Common Language Group meeting held at Friends House, London on Tuesday 22 March 2016.

The SIP project output examines opportunities for aquaculture in/around enclosed marine water bodies, as well as the development of a generic design for a shellfish hatchery - the proposed Tidal Lagoon in Swansea Bay (TLSB) case study is a significant focus

The mussel culture industry is one of the largest and most valuable fisheries in the UK representing almost 90% of total shellfish aquaculture production by weight in England and Wales with a value of around £14 million per year. Continuing productivity is significantly dependant on the movement of mussel seed from wild settlement areas to cultivation areas. Unfortunately, these shellfish movements can also spread pests such as the non-native slipper limpet (Crepidula fornicata) which has the potential to have a devastating effect on both fisheries and marine eco-systems as it out-competes other species for food and space as well as depositing pseudo-faeces that builds up to create cohesive ‘muds’. An accidental introduction of slipper limpets into the major UK mussel culture area of the Menai Straits, North Wales has recently occurred following a movement of mussel seed contaminated with slipper limpets from the English Channel. This led to urgent remedial action having to be taken by industry which involved removing the infested mussel seed and then smothering of any remaining slipper limpets with new slipper limpet free seed. There is a need therefore for the industry to self regulate and minimise risks in such transfers. Failure to do so will otherwise result in measures being imposed on industry in this respect. Positive action is now currently being undertaken in some regions as can be seen by the development of a Code of Good Practise by the Bangor Mussel Producers.