We are pleased to report that in August 2021 Greatbridge trout farm near Romsey regained membership of RSPCA Assured, restoring full membership for the Test Valley Trout Group across all their farms.  We are very grateful to Test Valley Trout for their hard work over the last few months to ensure welfare standards are being maintained at the highest level, which has now been recognised by the RSPCA.

Test Valley Trout was a founder member of the RSCPA welfare scheme and assisted in developing many of the standards, so they were very concerned to be included in the accusations made earlier this year by a vegan pressure group, VIVA, against trout farms across Southern England.

Many of the accusations proved to be unfounded and some of the film sequences were almost impossible to verify, however, Test Valley Trout was concerned that correct welfare procedures had not been met in a harvest sequence at their Greatbridge farm. We don’t believe this was representative of normal practices, however, we immediately stopped supply from this farm pending a full investigation.   

Test Valley Trout not only examined the incident in detail but reviewed all farm protocols relating to fish health and welfare across every part of production in the group. They also made improvements to the equipment and machinery used for moving and harvesting fish, along with some key staff changes and a review of staff training.

The Greatbridge farm has been visited by Harrods who confirmed the farm was meeting the level of animal welfare and food standards required to supply the high-end retailer. We also have new Governance and Controls with all our supplier farms, committing them to further standards including unannounced visits using a third-party inspector of our choice and an undertaking to install camera facilities to film all harvests.

We are immensely grateful to all our customers for the incredible support through a  challenging time, and we are delighted that so many of our wholesalers are busy again, joining our amazing on-line customers and our ever-growing network of farm shops.

 14 October 2021