Good Friday is the biggest fish eating day of the year in much of the world. Catholics and non-Catholics alike are drawn to fish mongers and fish n chips shops on this day like none other.

Can it continue?

That question of whether we can continue this tradition is brought into sharp focus when we read headlines like this one of last summer.

” The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s global fish price index, an industry benchmark that tracks the cost of wild and farmed seafood, hit a record high in May, up 15 per cent from a year ago and above the peak set in mid 2011.”

If we are going to continue to enjoy fish on Fridays we will need to do something about it. To guarantee the fish remain with us. Perhaps following the Biblical admonishment to become stewards of fish and to ‘cast nourishment upon the waters so that those waters might return that nourishment to us’. In becoming stewards of our fish we can replenish and restore historic abundance and provide nutritious fish for all. The miracle of this seemingly simple admonishment is that we have shown it to be true, it just works.

60 million servings of salmon as food aid

Here’s how we helped put 60 million servings of fish into the mouths of hungry children.

But how did this custom of eating fish on Fridays originate?

About the time of the second century of Christianity, Christians were advised to abstain from eating meat on Friday as a kind of sacrifice and reminder that acknowledged Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross which we commemorate on Good Friday.

With a large population of Catholics to drive the marketplace the sales of fish on Friday’s began to cross cultures. After all fish was a healthy and delicious food and often relatively inexpensive when compared to other meats.

For a long time there was always an abundance of fish and so having one day of the week a fish eating day made sense. In recent years however as fish becomes more and more scarce it has also become ever more expensive and Good Fridays fish bonanza for mongers and restaurants is waning.

In the UK a “Fish and Chip Frenzy” is marking this day.

FISH and chip shops across Hartlepool enjoyed what is traditionally their busiest day of the year as hungry customers queued for their Good Friday lunch. There were large queues at the majority of shops across town, and at Fish Face in Seaton Carew bosses were delighted with the trade.

Manager Dave Atkinson said: “It was certainly our busiest day of the year, people were been queuing from 11am out of the door and down the street. “We probably took double the takings compared to any other normal day.”

Michelle Lane, owner of  The Almighty Cod, also on The Front at Seaton, said staff there had gone through at least 50 sacks of potatoes by 2pm.

It’s not just Catholic western culture that is noting the cost of fish is rising  On Saturday January 5th, 2013 a 222-kilogram bluefin tuna was sold at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market for a record high of 155.4 million yen, or $1.8 million dollars. That equals $8,000 per kilo of tuna, making the fatty, richly-flavoured tuna eight times more expensive than silver.

Giant Bluefin Tuna

“The price was a bit high,” the winning bidder Kiyoshi Kimura told the Kyodo News Agency. “But I hope we can encourage Japan by providing good tuna.” He operates the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain, which claims to be Japan’s first 24-hour, 365-days-a-year sushi bar.

While some are willing to pay any price for the last of the giant tuna stocks of such fish as the bluefin tuna have dropped by 82% since 1978. It is very clear that these magnificent fish have little time left unless something is done to help steward their survival.

What if the oceans abundance of fish were able to be replenished and restored by giving back to the ocean pastures. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to do so.

The Fish Came Back

We think so, and
here’s how we’ve done it

and how we intend to do even more.

Give back to the ocean and

restore ocean fish everywhere.