HelloFresh Tilapia Rip-off?
I was really surprised to see Tilapia in our HelloFresh box today. HelloFresh promises: “ And that’s exactly why we connect you with the best British suppliers, ensuring that produce goes from their farm to your fork in the shortest time possible. From James Knight, our Royal-Warrant holding fishmonger to Roaming Roosters, our sustainable farming butcher, you can be sure you’ll be eating the best.” But this fish comes from China and probably some over-crowded, under-regulated fish farm. According to the web, Tilapia is the 2nd largest eaten fish worldwide. Why? It’s cheap and not too fishy. Tilapia is about £9/kilo versus salmon which is £13/kilo or even higher for organic £15-20/kilo. So HelloFresh is just trying to cut costs and will probably just say that they are not the only ones doing it. The Lance Armstrong defense.
China does seem to be particularly risky as they don’t seem to have any regulations on what the fish eat or how tightly jammed in the fish are. I really have no confidence on this. Beyond that why is the UK importing fish from China? We are surrounded by water! Understanding and trusting the provenance of food is probably the main reason why I liked the HelloFresh offering.
Their supplier here is James Kinght of swanky Mayfair -- well, actually they are from Vauxhall, so maybe it is clear even on their London address that they are happy to bend geography to sell a few fish. They carry the Royal Warrant which at one point meant they service the Palace--but I don’t think Prince Charles is bellying-up to the table to chow on Chinese-farmed fish.
Buying fish and eating in fish restaurants is really a mine-field. I don’t even know if I trust organic that much, but at least you can live in hope if it marked organic. But Tilapia from China--life is too short and precious to roll that die.
-----Response from HelloFresh Customer Support:
Thank you so much for your call today.
To become an established HelloFresh supplier means to have gone through a rigorous process of quality tests and satisfaction as to responsible and ethical production. We're absolutely determined to send you something we are proud of and that you love.
Since your call we've been talking to Paschal who is the Managing Director of James Knight of Mayfair, our fishmonger.
Whether it be beef, fish, corn or even sugar there are producers around the world who will bend and break the rules to create a cheaper product, with little regard to the environment or the health of the ultimate consumer. That's why we decided to work with James Knight in the first place. They're the best. Whether their fish is caught on the coast of the UK or sourced elsewhere, the level of quality checks they go through is practically eye-watering. It's a big reason why the Royal Family use them as their official fishmonger.
To give you more insight our tilapia are reared in an environment which is designed specifically to prevent water pollution (which is a problem often caused by badly farmed fish). Whether it is reared in the UK or abroad James Knight only work with farms that are approved by the US Food & Drug Administration (who have some of the most stringent standards in the world). Also because they are mainly fed on a grain-based diet they do not have the further knock-on effect of depleting wild fish stocks.
Tilapia have a different nutritional profile to other fish. But similarly pork has a different nutritional profile to beef. Patrick and the recipe development put an incredible amount of thought into balancing your box with different flavours, textures and experiences of new dishes. Though they'll use tilapia one week (as it goes particularly well in a certain dish) they'll use salmon, or bream or sea bass another week. Much in the same way that in successive weeks they would choose different meats to make sure you have some variety.
As a token of apology, I have added a £10 credit to your account.
I hope that helps a bit but if you have any more questions at all please drop me a line anytime. And remember, if there's a recipe that you would rather not have you can actually swap it out of our Classic Box (the one with 3 recipes per week) really easily using your account.
thank-you for your note. We appreciate that HelloFresh takes care in ethical sourcing, which is one of the main reasons we have used your service.
Specifically on the chinese sourced Tilapia, though we are not convinced about quality.
There are many, many Tilapia suppliers in China and how could anyone really know which farm the fish heading to my plate actually come from? The chain of control would need to be very stringent. The USDA acts typically as a advisor, if they even do this which is doubful but has no jurisdiction out there or in any other country. Certainly they are allowing Tilapia to be imported to the US that would not meet any standards you are describing below.
There are some ethical Tilapia farmers running big operations now--but they seem to be outside of China. One example is http://www.regalsprings.com/ . Is your ultimate supplier running at similar level of control? These players control the end-to-end supply chain and can track from hatchery to filleting.
I assume you can also mark our account somehow to make sure we never get Tilapia again.
We look forward to more information on the provenance of the Tilapia your company sent us.
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