By DIVE Staff
The Marine Conservation Society has updated its Good Fish Guide for 2025 in line with the latest scientific advice, which brings concerning news from some of the UK’s fisheries.
The Good Fish Guide rates seafood caught, farmed, or sold in UK using a traffic light system where green is the best choice for the table, amber is given to fisheries where there is room for improvement and red denotes fish to be avoided.
The system applies to both fish and shellfish, and depends on both how and where it was caught and farmed.
In the latest update, North Sea herring has been downgraded from green to amber due to increased fishing pressure, and means there are no green-rated options for herring in UK supermarkets.
Herring, like mackerel, is a small fish that plays a key role in the marine food web, being a vital food source for marine predators such as dolphins, seals, orcas and a variety of seabirds.
Cod fisheries also remain poor, and have done for several years, with no green-rated cod stocks in UK waters. Most of the UK’s cod is imported from Icelandic Arctic stocks, and while this remains green-rated, cod caught in the Northeast Arctic Atlantic has been downgraded from amber to red.
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Northeast Arctic Atlantic cod is one of the largest cod stocks in the world, with Russia and Norway being the main fishers. Together with the decline in cod stocks, the fishery has been linked to an unsustainable bycatch of golden redfish, a species with no safe catch level, raising concerns over broader impacts to the regional ecosystem.
Haddock – along with cod, one of the most frequently consumed fish in the UK – has also been downgraded, with haddock from the Southern Celtic Seas fishery receiving a red rating due to overfishing, high discard rates and an excess bycatch of cod and whiting, both of which are under zero catch advice in the area.
Northeast Arctic haddock, previously considered more sustainable, has seen ratings drop due to rising fishing pressure and similar bycatch concerns.
In some good news revealed by the latest Good Fish Guide update, seabass has seen an improvement in ratings across several regions, including the North Sea, English Channel, and Bay of Biscay, where ratings have changed from amber to green due to good compliance with management and signs of population recovery.
‘The further downgrade of cod and haddock is a clear sign that cod and haddock fisheries need to be urgently better managed, and scientific advice adhered to,’ said Chris Graham, MCS Head of Ocean Regeneration and Sustainable Seafood. ‘We know that recovery is possible, as shown by the improvement in the score of seabass where the stocks have been left to recover.
‘At home, we must see the UK Government take strong action to reduce fishing pressure on our own fish stocks where they are depleted and support a shift to low-impact fishing practices, to help recover our seas so that we can continue to enjoy these classics, and marine life can flourish.’
MCS is encouraging consumers, retailers, and policymakers to use the Good Fish Guide to make informed choices that support healthy oceans. Some of the recommendations from this year’s update include:
- Swapping cod for hake
- Using pollock instead of haddock
- Buying farmed rainbow trout instead of salmon (but check the guide for the most sustainable rainbow trout options)
- Eating mussels instead of prawns
- Swap tuna for anchovies or sardines.
Visit the Marine Conservation Society’s website for more information on the Good Fish Guide and how the ratings work. The guide is also available as the Seafood Checker for Android and iPhone.
A full list of ratings changes can be found here; the next update to the Good Fish Guide will be in Spring 2026.
