Jamie Oliver did more to help the recovery of consumer confidence in salmon over a health scare involving toxins than the Food Standards Agency, Aquaculture Today 2005 was told today.

The celebrity chef came out fighting to endorse salmon in the wake of a row last year over the presence of tiny amounts of PCBs started by a US researcher.

The researcher, Dr David Carpenter, had said toxins were present in farmed salmon and consumers should avoid eating too many portions.

He was widely contradicted by many bodies, including the Food Standards Agency.

But it was Oliver’s contribution that made the biggest difference, Scottish Quality Salmon’s head of communications Julie Edgar told the 160 plus delegates at the UK’s premier fish farming conference.

Edgar said: “People know about the Food Standards Agency but didn’t look at it as a source of advice. Then celebrity chef Jamie Oliver spoke up and people seemed to listen about that.”

She said consumers are now suspicious of “official” sources of comment, the men in white coats from the past. Instead their “webs of trust” were now friends, family, and influential spokespeople like Jamie Oliver.

Edgar also told the conference of the campaign waged to turn round consumer perceptions of salmon. She said that the media did not hate fish-farming but was hungry for a headline, and when Scottish Quality Salmon and others pointed out the health benefits of fish, and spoke up about the Carpenter research, some elements of the media swung round and urged consumers to continue to eat salmon.

She was speaking on the second day of the Aquaculture Today 2005 conference, organised by Fish Farmer magazine at the Edinburgh Marriott Hotel.

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