For millions of Britons, smoked salmon on blinis or dill-laden gravadlax is a party staple. But restaurants and home cooks are increasingly choosing trout instead.
Trout sales are up 36% year on year at Waitrose, with raw trout seeing the biggest increase, up more than 60%. Over at online retailer Ocado, trout sales have jumped higher – up 54% year on year.
Several restaurants have ditched salmon in recent years, from Angela’s of Margate and Apricity in Mayfair to Crocadon Farm in Cornwall and Edinburgh’s The Palmerston. More than 300 chefs and restaurants are backing Off the Table, a campaign against eating farmed salmon run by the WildFish conservation charity – a number that has more than doubled over the past year.
Paul Gamble, Waitrose’s senior brand development chef, said trout has seen more interest in recent years among customers, “increasingly appearing on restaurant menus, with chalk stream trout in particular proving popular. The delicate nature of trout makes it very versatile, easy to pair and suitable for use in a variety of homemade dishes,” he added. “It’s a super healthy fish too, packed with omega-3 fatty acids and protein, and it’s low in saturated fat.”
Restaurant chefs have spoken previously of concerns over antibiotic use, sea lice (which affect wild salmon and trout) and the amount of fish-based feed consumed by farmed salmon. According to campaigners, a 70% decline in Atlantic salmon populations in Scottish rivers since 2000 is partly down to the rise of salmon farms.
Rainbow trout reared in chalk streams in southern England can be farmed in freshwater ponds or raceways rather than in open-net pens, with the water flowing into settling ponds rather than the sea. Proponents cite environmental advantages, including trout largely being sold locally rather than shipped globally, and many farms focusing on slower-grown fish with lower stock densities, helping reduce stress. Wild trout is also available.
Adam Smith, executive chef at Coworth Park in Berkshire, said: “British trout is a much underused and underrated product. I prefer to eat and serve trout cured or raw – it has a better taste and texture.”
Clare Coghill grew up on the Isle of Skye and has never served salmon at Café Cuil. “The waters around Skye are peppered with fish farms run by multinational corporations,” Coghill said. “I have seen the effect overfishing has had on our shorelines and seabeds. I’ve never understood why very little is being done to control it.” Coghill sources wild sea trout from near the restaurant and cures it in gin, dill and fennel seeds to serve alongside scrambled egg and fermented beetroot.
Rachel Mulrenan, Scotland director for WildFish, believes chefs shouldn’t use farmed sea trout. “We see no differentiation between open-net salmon farming and open-net trout farming in Scotland’s coastal and freshwater lochs,” she said. “The issues related to salmon farming [including sea lice, chemical use and water pollution] are the same for sea-raised trout.”
She added that there were “similar questions around sustainability” when it came to trout feed. Trout farms also use antibiotics, Caroline Bennett of Sole of Discretion, a collective of small-scale fishers working out of Plymouth harbour, said.
But Mulrenan said freshwater farms using flow-through systems “do not pose the same threats to wild fish populations as coastal open-net farms with regard to sea lice parasites. From an environmental perspective, a move away from open-net farmed salmon is undoubtedly positive. At a small scale, based on the available evidence, chalk stream trout does appear to be a favourable option.”
There have been issues around freshwater trout farms in the past. In 2020, an investigation by Viva!, a vegan campaigning charity, found fish in overcrowded and dirty ponds suffering from stress at a supplier to Hampshire-based ChalkStream, one of the most prized suppliers of farmed trout. ChalkStream said it had stopped orders from the supplier and initiated immediate discussions around safeguarding.
Trout can be a harder sell to the consumer. “It is sometimes deemed a less premium fish, and some are concerned it will have a muddy taste,” said Ben Champkin, chef patron of Catch at The Old Fish Market in Weymouth. Yet more are using it. “We have seen an increase in popularity from the trade,” said Angus Hay, operations manager at Bibury Trout Farm in Gloucestershire. “People still have a stigma about trout having an earthy taste, and that it is inferior to salmon, but this is far from the truth.
“Recently there has been an uptake on chefs on TV using trout over salmon – and alongside social media, that has certainly helped make people aware of the importance of high-quality food with a lower carbon footprint.”
Andy Beynon of Michelin-starred Behind in east London also prefers trout, describing the fish as “a more sustainable option, but also a consistent quality fish with a much better fat content. Although the meat itself is quite lean, it’s got a really good fat content around the outside, which makes it great to cook with.”
For a rising number of chefs, trout is the future. “It’s my preferred option over salmon every time,” said Coghill. “It has a beautiful, subtle flavour and is packed full of good fats. Knowing it’s caught and sourced sustainably makes it taste even better.”
