Packham shreds M&S salmon

Project Slingshot today launches a campaign calling on Marks & Spencer to stop selling factory-farmed salmon. The launch includes a satirical film starring broadcaster and wildlife campaigner Chris Packham and more than 5,000 adverts across the London Underground.

In the film is Chris Packham as you’ve never seen him before: sporting a moustache and dressed as an English gentleman, he sets up an apparently idyllic Scottish salmon picnic. But the spread comes complete with a colour chart and chemical “condiments”, before the scenery is revealed to be a studio backdrop. The satirical film takes apart the luxury image used to sell farmed salmon, highlighting sea lice, chemical treatments and pigments added to feed to turn the flesh pink.

Project Slingshot is asking M&S to commit to ending sales of factory-farmed salmon and publish a timetable for doing so.

The campaign follows M&S and its Scottish salmon supplier, Scottish Sea Farms, celebrating 20 years of partnership with customer tasting events in Edinburgh and Oban. M&S markets some of its Scottish salmon under the Lochmuir brand, a name that evokes a Scottish loch but does not refer to a real one. Its latest animal welfare report records 12,151 tonnes of farmed Atlantic salmon sourced in 2024.

Farmed salmon are confined in sea cages and can suffer fin damage, eye injuries, deformities and gill disease. Sea lice feed on their skin and flesh. The treatments used to remove the lice, including chemicals, heated water and mechanical delousing, can cause further stress and injury.

Salmon farming puts Scotland’s wild salmon at risk. Sea lice from farms can spread through coastal waters and infect young wild salmon migrating to sea, harming their growth and reducing their chances of survival. Escaped farmed salmon can also breed with wild fish, producing offspring less well adapted to their environment and threatening the genetic integrity of wild populations. The wider marine environment suffers too: fish waste and uneaten feed can smother seabed life and lower oxygen levels, while chemical treatments used on farms can harm other marine species.

Across the Scottish salmon industry, an estimated 34 million farmed salmon were slaughtered in 2025. Animal Equality reports that a further 12 million died on farms before reaching slaughter.

In December 2025, Animal Equality published footage it says shows injured, deformed and diseased salmon at three Scottish farms. The organisation identified Kerrera B and Shuna Point, two Scottish Sea Farms sites, as supplying M&S.

In June 2026, The Telegraph reported that SEPA had launched an investigation into formalin use and reporting at Cooke Aquaculture’s Garasdale site in Kintyre. The newspaper identified Cooke as supplying organic salmon to M&S and Waitrose. Cooke said the treatment was permitted under organic standards and that SEPA’s May 2025 audit had found no non-compliance with its permit conditions.

Chris Packham said:

"Salmon are extraordinary animals which have evolved to travel thousands of miles. Confining them in sea cages exposes them to excessive levels of parasites, a range of diseases and practices that cause extreme suffering. And the damage doesn't stay inside the farm - their waste and toxic chemicals destroy marine life and this, plus frequent escapes, put Scotland's endangered wild salmon at risk. M&S should use its influence to help end factory-farmed salmon."

Naomi Hallum, CEO and co-founder of Project Slingshot, said:

"M&S tells a story of care and pristine Scottish waters, and it names its salmon after a loch that doesn't exist. Behind that story is a factory-farming system that no label can make humane. M&S should commit to taking factory-farmed salmon off its shelves."

The campaign invites members of the public to email M&S chief executive Stuart Machin directly, calling on the retailer to stop selling factory-farmed salmon and publish a timetable for removing it from its shelves. Supporters can send their message at action.projectslingshot.com/email-ms-drop-farmed-salmon.