Every pack of fish leaving the unit on Plymouth's Sutton Harbour carries three names: the fish, the boat and the fishermen who pulled it from the sea. Sole of Discretion is a community interest company supporting small-scale fishermen, who run small day boats along the South West and English Channel coast. Caroline Bennett founded the company in 2016. She had spent two decades at Moshi Moshi, the London restaurant she opened in 1994 to introduce kaiten sushi to the City and she knew the seafood supply chain hid more than it revealed. The fish on the supermarket counter rarely tells you who caught it, where, or how. Sole of Discretion does the opposite. Every pack is labelled with the catching method, the boat name and the fishermen's name. The fish is processed at the quay, often within hours of being landed, vacuum-packed in 300-gram portions, and either dispatched fresh or blast-frozen to lock in the catch. They buy only from owner-operated day boats under ten metres, working static gill or trammel nets, hand lines, and small mid-water trawls for shoaling species like sardines and herring. The catch can include pouting, wrasse, ling and dogfish, species the auction very often ignores, alongside the better-known sole, plaice and pollack. The principle is that paying small-scale fishermen a fair, agreed price keeps a generation of skippers at sea who would otherwise have left it. I added them to the guide because traceability of this order - fishermen named, boat named, method named, on every pack - barely exists in British fishing. There ought to be more like it.

Awards and Recognition

Fishing News Awards 2021 - Fish Processor of the Year (Winner) Delicious Produce Awards 2017 - Highly Commended for pollack

Social Media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sole_of_discretion/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoleofDiscretion/

Can people visit or buy direct?

Yes, it is possible to buy direct from their unit at 5 The Fish Quay, Sutton Harbour, Plymouth. Please check their website and social media before visiting for most up to date ways to place an order and visit. You can also order for mail order delivery through the online shop.

Website

https://soleofdiscretion.co.uk

Address Summary

Sutton Harbour, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 0LH