South west chefs and fishers learn to adapt to new fish species

Chefs and fishers say they need to adapt as increasing numbers of once rare species of fish are being attracted to warming waters. An ongoing octopus bloom, which the Marine Biological Association said had been attracted from the Mediterranean by increasingly warm waters in the South West, has severely hit shellfish. Newquay crab and lobster fisher Buck Bennett said he had seen more red mullet and types of bream than ever before and believes fishermen will need to adapt. He supplies Jamie Park, chef director for the Adam Handling Collection, who said he was "going to have to get the Mediterranean encyclopaedia of fish out to start understanding the new species". Bennett said: "We've always caught red mullet but the numbers that have been poor over the last couple of years seems to be increasing massively. "When you look into them they're a very Mediterranean fish, also black bream, gilt-head bream and couch's bream, yet again, something that we would catch but in very, very small numbers. "So I think the industry over the next three, five, seven, 10 years, anybody's guess, we could be fishing and having to change our fishing methods totally." Bennett said fishers have always had to

Jul 18, 2026 → Jul 18, 2026