We are a seafood company with ethics at the very centre of our priorities
Video by Mr Smith Creative. Original footage by Glenn Dearing.
The Ethical Shellfish company began on the Isle of Mull in 2010, dive fishing for King Scallops from our boat Invictus – one of the smallest registered fishing boats in the UK. Launched by Guy Grieve and his then wife Juliet Knight, the concept was to create a fishing company with a difference – one that would put ethics at the very centre of its priorities and would never sell seafood that had come at the cost of the marine environment.
Diving for scallops is one of the most sustainable fishing methods there is, each one picked up by hand with no damage to the surrounding marine habitat. We began by delivering to chefs in Edinburgh and Glasgow and then quickly expanded until we were supplying some of the best chefs throughout the UK.
Word had got around about the incredible freshness of our scallops: they arrived literally jumping in their boxes and still dripping with water from the Atlantic.
From a start there was a kinship between The Ethical Shellfish Company and our customers. The best chefs, such as Raymond Blanc, don’t take short cuts with their quality and provenance and neither do we. And this is because we love the sea. From the start we have said that ‘We will pick the apples without trampling the flowers beneath,’ and this ethos remains to this day.
The past couple of years have seen quite some changes and when Covid struck in 2020 we were forced to sell our fishing boats to keep the company going. We continue to buy from dive fishing boats based on the West Coast of Scotland, and use our years as dive fishermen to ensure we are the most discerning buyers of hand dived scallops in the UK. Guy and Juliet have been joined by their son Oscar, and they remain 100% committed to the ethos of the business and passionate about what they do: namely to provide the very best shellfish from the West Coast of Scotland, fished without any damage to the precious sea that surrounds us.
During Covid we began supplying our top quality ethically fished shellfish direct to home cooks, and this is something we continue to do alongside our deliveries to restaurants. We treat our private customers with the same respect and care as we do our chefs and are so excited to be helping people create Michelin standard meals within their own homes!
“The Ethical Shellfish Company is passionate, zealous and committed
to excellence” (Delicious Magazine, 2016)
