Sustainable fisheries certifier, Friend of the Sea, has secured an important victory for environmental and animal welfare campaigners in persuading food delivery company, Deliveroo, to remove shark fin soup from its menus.
This comes a few days after similar success with fellow food delivery company, Just Eat.
Deliveroo has committed to removing 600 shark fin dishes from 180 different restaurants on its global platform and also pledged to having no such dishes in future.
"Food delivery companies,” said Paolo Bray, founder and director at Friend of the Sea “can play a very important role in educating restaurants and consumers to respect the environment and social responsibility.”
Shark fin soup is an ancient tradition, widespread in many Asian countries, and has expanded globally, mainly as a gastronomic curiosity.
The practice of shark finning is widely recognised as wasteful and cruel, killing an estimated 100 million sharks each year, leading several shark populations close to extinction and negatively affecting the marine ecosystem.
Friend of the Sea launched an international petition which gathered almost 4,000 signatures and led Just Eat to take off shark fin soups from its menu, a move now duplicated by Deliveroo.
