Greece restaurants forced to 'remove' item from menu with UK tourists warned

Tourists on holiday in Greece have been warned over a menu item being taken off restaurant menus. UK tourists heading to the European Union holiday hotspot on vacation have been warned over a menu item being removed from the menu of eateries.

It is the second time in three years that record sea temperatures have hit the mussel harvest in northern Greece, where farmers said they saw a 90% drop in the 2024 catch. “The destruction we suffered (for next year) was 100%,” 35-year-old Anastasios Zakalkas said.

“We don’t know how we’ll make a living in the new year. Our main and only job is mussels,” he said. “This shows, even to those most sceptical, that the climate crisis is here,” he said. "We’re very close to the collapse of mussel farming in Greece, so the state needs to support these people,” he said.

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It’s the second time in three years that Greece has faced this crisis, which was initially expected to occur only once in a decade, according to marine biologist Kostas Koukaras. Koukaras, who studies marine ecosystems, said: “This shows, even to those most sceptical, that the climate crisis is here.”

“We’re afraid,” said Sotiris Tsaros, another mussel farmer. “If this happens again next year, we’ll all leave and everything I’ve done as a farmer for the last 30 years will be gone.” The Hellenic Aquaculture Producers Organisation reports that Greece usually produces more than 20,000 tonnes of mussels each year, much of it exported.

Greece’s seafood industry was valued at over £500 million in 2021, placing it third in Europe after France and Spain. Spain has also seen mussel deaths, although Koukaras said Greece‘s sector was hit hardest because nearly all its farms are concentrated in the same region.

It comes as UK tourists continue to venture abroad for winter sun.