Organic cod farm shut down after losing £40m
Severin Carrell in Shetland
guardian.co.uk, Friday April 11 2008

Cod being farmed in Vidlin Voe in the Shetland Islands by Johnson Seafarms Ltd, the company behind the ill-fated 'No Catch' brand. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

A revolutionary scheme to grow organic cod in Scottish fish farms, touted as the ethical answer to a global crisis in fish stocks, has been shut down after it lost £40m in three years.

The world's first attempt to farm organic cod, "No Catch" fish was sold as a breakthrough in sustainable fisheries. Its costly marketing campaign boasted it would "save the planet" and claimed celebrities such as Demi Moore had savoured its ethically-conscious produce.

"Not too high a price to pay for a clear conscience," its adverts said.
But the administrators Grant Thornton, brought in earlier this year to rescue the Shetland-based business from total collapse, admitted that organic cod farming had been a financial disaster and had no realistic chance of succeeding.

It has sold the firm's fish- farming business to two Norwegian-owned companies, who will instead begin producing organic salmon in Shetland's coastal waters. Its last supplies of cod – totalling about 3,400 tonnes - would now be sold off at knock-down prices, less than a tenth of its original cost in the shops.