This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter.

Something is going on in the London Underground. A poster bears an image of a salmon, its head and tail covered in sores and devoured by lice but its body a bright, pan-ready, glistening steak, and the words: “They say their salmon is a ‘power punch of healthy goodness’. Don’t buy it. We only get what the lice don’t eat.”

Something is also going on online. In a short satirical film, The Perfect Picnic, Chris Packham, dressed as an English gentleman and sporting a moustache, boater and bow-tie against the backdrop of a Scottish sea loch and salmon farm, is just about to dive into his picnic of smoked salmon when he notices that the artfully arranged carpaccio of smoked fish is grey.

Thus starts a new advert by Project Slingshot, an ‘anti-factory farming’ campaign, currently taking its shot at the Scottish salmon farm industry and reaching out directly to the consumer.

In The Perfect Picnic, Packham takes his grey fish and smothers it in astaxanthin, the feed additive which is used to turn farmed salmon flesh pink. He then notices that his now colourful salmon is crawling with an infestation of sea lice and flicks one of them away.

Finally, he adds a drizzle of formaldehyde and another of hydrogen peroxide, saying, “Can’t be too careful.” The film is part of an eight-week London Underground poster campaign, alongside Gaslit, a short documentary featuring critics of the industry.

Project Slingshot is asking M&S to commit to ending sales of farmed salmon and publish a timetable for doing so. The supermarket’s salmon suppliers include Scottish Sea Farms.

A still from The Perfect Picnic, featuring Chris Packham, part of Project Slingshot's anti salmon farm campaign (Image: Project Slingshot)

But an M&S spokesperson said: "Salmon is a nutrient-rich, healthy protein. It is an excellent source of the omega-3 fatty acids that are required in our diets. Without farming, this important protein would be unavailable to millions of families across the UK.........

© Herald Scotland