A Passion for Seafood

27/08/2026

So excited and honoured to be part of this 🐟🦞🦀

For the First Time, Britain Will Celebrate a National Harvest of the Sea
Sunday 11 October | 6.00pm | Exeter Cathedral
For centuries Britain has celebrated the harvest from the land. This autumn, for the first
time, the nation will come together to celebrate the harvest of the sea.
On Sunday 11 October at 6.00 pm, Exeter Cathedral will host the inaugural National
Harvest of the Sea —a landmark service recognising the fishermen and women, fishing
families and coastal communities whose dedication has provided sustainable seafood to
Britain for generations.
Held in partnership with Love British Food, and supported by Seafish, the UK's public
body supporting the seafood industry, the National Harvest of the Sea celebrates
seafood as an essential part of Britain's food story. While the annual Westminster
Harvest Festival has long recognised the achievements of British farming and
agriculture, this new national event shines a light on those who harvest the seas,
ensuring that fishing takes its rightful place within the nation's harvest traditions.
The Bishop of Exeter will preach at the service, in partnership with The Fishermen's
Mission, area manager for Devon, Helen Lovell-Smith, bringing together representatives
from across the fishing industry, seafood businesses, coastal communities, churches and
supporters from around the United Kingdom.
Fishing is one of Britain's oldest industries, helping shape our coastal towns.
Plymouth Fishing & Seafood Association
Love British Food
Helen Lovell-Smith
Jenny Jefferies
Fishing News
A Passion for Seafood

27/08/2026

The stuff of legends. Such an amazing history 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

A barrel of salt herring standing in the corner of a Scottish house meant one thing. The family would eat through the winter. 🐟

Tatties and herring is a joke now, a punchline about plain food. It was not a joke then. It was the arithmetic of survival on the coast, and it worked because somebody had gutted and salted those fish at incredible speed months earlier.

Those somebodies were young women, and they followed the fish down the length of Britain. The season opened in Shetland in May, moved down the east coast of Scotland, on to the Tyne, down the Yorkshire coast, and finished at Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft in December. They worked in crews of three, two gutting and one packing, almost always family or lasses from the same village who had signed on together.

The speed is the part that stops people. The best gutters could take about a second a fish, roughly sixty herring a minute, though forty was closer to the everyday rate. They worked at open troughs in all weathers with a short knife called a futtle, and every morning before work they wrapped strips of cotton, often cut up from flour bags, around every single finger. The call to get out of bed was not get up, it was get up an' tie yer fingers. 🩹

Even so, the knife caught them, and the salt found every cut, and a bad hand could end a season.

The scale of it is almost unbelievable now. In 1907, the peak year, two and a half million barrels of cured Scottish herring were exported, most of it to Germany, eastern Europe and Russia. By 1913 more than ten thousand boats were in it. Around nine thousand migrant herring lasses were still travelling in 1920.

Then the Russian and German markets closed after the First World War and the whole thing began to fall away. By 1938 the number of lasses was down to about four and a half thousand. By 1962 only ten Scottish women went south for the Yarmouth season. 🌊

If there are east coast or island women in your line, look again at the ones the records call unmarried, at home. Some of them had already seen more of Britain by the age of twenty than their brothers ever would.

17/08/2026

Just back from a fantastic weekend in Lancashire supporting along with my great friend and local Fleetwood seafood supplier, the amazing 🐟

Thank you to all who came and supported and listened to our fishy stories and sampled CJ’s wonderful seafood cooking 👌🏻

Thanks too for a wonderful stay and superb hospitality 😎🙏🏻

Here’s to 2027 ! 🦞🥂

09/08/2026

Another fantastic lobster workshop completed on a beautiful summer Aldeburgh beach today, as part of our programme of ☀️

Today we focused on prepping lobsters for the table and learning about their ecology, sustainability and how we fish for them 🦞The guys then took their dressed lobsters home with them and what a great job they did 👏🏻👏🏻

We finished off with an oyster shucking session with Pinney's Of Orford Pinney’s Of Orford and a very pleasant glass or two of crisp, chilled white 🥂

We’ll be running our shellfish experiences - beach workshops and sh*****ng safaris until October, so if you fancy a couple of hours on the beach immersed in the finest seafood the Suffolk Heritage Coast has to offer, then this is definitely for you 🦞🦀🦐🦪

Private and group bookings most welcome or you can book online using the link in our bio. More dates being released soon. DM me if you have a date in mind and I’ll do my best to accommodate you 😊👍🏻

Huge thanks to Dom Rowntree for coming along today and taking some fab pics which appear on our story 📹 🦞 Also to Jim McMullan for the use of his work space on the beach 👍🏻

Thanks too, to Becky drake for the cool box, ice and tea towels x

05/08/2026

Calling all inshore small scale fishermen 🐟🦀🦞

Happy Monday - another busy week ahead for England’s inshore fleet.

The English Small Scale Inshore Fishing Network is being shaped by fishermen, for fishermen.

Your voice matters. Come join us: https://www.smallscaleinshorefisheriesnetwork.co.uk/join-us

Your Voice, Your Influence, Your Future

28/07/2026

A few spaces left on Saturday 12th September to come and join me sh*****ng on the Suffolk Heritage Coast 🔗 below

https://www.apassionforseafood.com/eventsandshop/p/sh*****ng-safari

28/07/2026

🦐Sh*****ng Update🦐

We have just a few spaces left on our Sh*****ng Safari on Saturday September 12th on the Suffolk Heritage Coast.

This is a chance for young and old to come and have a lot of fun paddling in the surf, hunting the elusive brown shrimp and learning about the ecology and environment of our shoreline and the importance of the communities that harvest the sea 🦐🐟🦀🦞🦪

All tuition, guidance and equipment provided - absolutely no experience necessary, just prepare to get wet 💦💦😉

We finish up a seafood picnic with catch 👌🏻🦐

Book online - 🔗 in bio

If we have enough interest we’ll put on an extra date on Sunday 13th September too.
2-3 hrs of fun on the beach under our magnificent Suffolk Skies ☀️

21/07/2026

A hugely important step for our inshore fishing communities. Drop me a line if you’d like more info? We’d love to hear from you. The more the merrier. This is for you inshore fishermen 👍🏻🐟🦀🦞

We’re bringing together fishermen from across England to build the Small Scale Inshore Fishing Network – an ambitious fisherman led voice for our inshore fleet.

Your insight matters.

Join the network, add your voice, and help shape the decisions that will strengthen our communities and our future - join here
https://www.smallscaleinshorefisheriesnetwork.co.uk/join-us