TV ads featuring Jamie Oliver promoting Sainsburys Scottish farmed salmon have caused widespread outrage.
The celebrity chef’s website forum discussion was closed after being flooded by complaints from people claiming the ads were misleading, untrue and a blatant attempt to try to fool people into eating a third-rate, fat and flabby substitute for the real thing.
Wild fish supporters intend to take their message directly to Jamie Oliver by demonstrating outside his 15 Restaurant on Sunday (19th December) lunchtime. Peter Begg, Oliver’s executive chef commented: “Jamie normally wouldn’t go near farmed salmon – we certainly don’t sell it in the restaurant – but we thought this [Sainsburys] was a better product.”
Salmon Farm Protest Group chairman Bruce Sandison said: “The fish Jamie is promoting come from Loch Hourn in Inverness-shire, from a farm that is being investigated for pollution. In 2000 the same farm was fined for polluting the loch when they allowed 240,000 salmon to die in their cages. The weight of the dead fish broke the cages allowing tens of thousands of decaying and dying farm salmon to spread throughout the loch.”
Jamie Oliver defended his decision to do the Sainsbury ads, saying: “I’d much rather the public ate this quality of salmon than none at all,” he said.
Fellow chef, Clarissa Dickson Wright responded: “He’s a whore; it’s a simple as that. I would never endorse something that I would not use.”