Chris Packham launches eight-week M&S salmon campaign with 5,000 London Underground adverts demanding a withdrawal timetable

From the Newshound archive · first published 7 October 2026 · last updated 8 October 2026.

Wildlife presenter Chris Packham is fronting an eight-week Project Slingshot campaign that demands Marks & Spencer stop selling farmed Scottish salmon and publish a timetable for doing so. A satirical film shows Packham rubbing astaxanthin dye, sea lice and chemicals onto picnic salmon, ridiculing the way the fish is marketed to shoppers. Over 5,000 adverts have been placed across the London Underground, and the campaign is urging customers to email M&S chief executive Stuart Machin directly.

M&S defended its sourcing policy, saying suppliers must meet RSPCA welfare requirements and the Code of Good Practice for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture.

Scottish salmon farming brings roughly £885 million into the Scottish economy, and ministers have set a target of producing up to 400,000 tonnes a year by 2030.

Campaign figures indicate that 15 million Scottish farmed salmon — a third of all fish — die before they can be harvested.