Billingsgate Seafood Training School

Billingsgate Fish Market is based in the buzzing Docklands area of London, next to the Canary Wharf estate. Located on the first floor of the Market, the Seafood School is a charitable company with the aim of promoting the awareness of fish in young people and to increase the knowledge of those people already working in the industry, in areas such as retail and catering. All commercial activities undertaken by the school will fund courses for young people free of charge

Training for Young People, Seafood Industry and the General Public

The School has first class facilities that have been recently upgraded to provide excellent practical kitchens and a professional fishmonger knife skills training suite. Each room can accommodate 14 attendees and allows the School to offer the combined facilities for groups up to 28 who undertake both practical fish preparation and fish cookery courses. To complement the practical areas the School also offers a lecture room that can accommodate 40 seated for presentations. This room is also unique in that it has life size antique plaster fish models showing a wide selection of UK seafood species. To entertain larger groups the Market’s committee room is an ideal venue for board room style meetings and larger events with a seated capacity of 100. The School runs courses from 6.15 am. to 10 pm. with the facilities available from Monday to Saturday. The School is also available for both private and corporate bookings, for bespoke and team days.

Unique Seafood Training Experience

Billingsgate Seafood School is a unique place to experience seafood it is part of the UK’s largest inland fish and shellfish market. With hundreds of year’s of history behind the Market, the name is recognised worldwide and indeed now trades over 150 different species and forms of seafood every week. The School is able to include guided Market visits as part of many of the courses offered. The focus for attendees is how to identify different species of fish and shellfish and how to assess quality. Market visits also discuss when fish is best enjoyed, particularly the seasonality of wild caught fish. With an increasing quantity of farmed fish now available attendees learn how to tell differences between farmed and wild fish and their relative merits.

The Market is operated by the City of London who rent space to approximately 50 individual seafood businesses. Any country that is able to meet EU import standards can supply product into Billingsgate. As the UK supply chain has evolved in recent years Billingsgate has built a name supplying London’s diverse population. Billingsgate Merchants open their shops and stalls on the Market floor Tuesday to Saturday 5 am to 8 am. Their customers include fishmongers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, catering companies and the general public.

Training for Young People

As a charitable company the primary function of the school is to introduce and educate young people about fish and promote the heath benefits of eating seafood. We do this by delivering free courses to young people, for groups up to thirty students. The simple idea of our schools programme is to show students what fish look like in their natural state, how they are prepared and then simple, quick methods of cooking them. Students will also learn about the qualifications needed for various jobs within the seafood industry and identify training opportunities that are available to help them work find work.
Training for the Seafood Industry

The Seafood School encourages young people and those wanting to change career to consider the Seafood Industry. Since the School was established in 2000 we have focused on developing our schools programmes to promote seafood together with benchmarking industry- wide training. To cater for our wide client base we offer both a selection of scheduled events, and also tailored programmes designed specifically to individual clients needs. We offer Seafood master classes particularly aimed at Chefs, such as our ‘Sushi and Sashimi master class’. Other industry training available includes Quality Assessment, Food Safety, Knife Skills, City & Guilds in Seafood Retailing, Introduction to Fishmongering and Get into Fishmongering business seminars.

Training for the General Public

With increasing demand from the public to learn how to prepare and cook seafood in the home the School now offers a wide selection of evening, half day and full day courses aimed at individual members of public. These courses are characterised by their practical nature and offer real skills that can be translated back into the home environment. The most popular of these courses include our ‘Catch of the Day’ series of full and half days, Mastering the Art Saturdays, Shellfish and Japanese workshops. Full details and the latest availability of all our courses can be seen at www.seafoodtraining.org.

Contact:
Billingsgate Seafood Training School
Office 30 Billingsgate Market
Trafalgar Way, London E14 5ST
Tel: 020 7517 3548 Fax: 020 7517 3544
Email: info@seafoodtraining.org