THE humble cod, for some time off the menu for the environmentally conscious, is poised for a revival today when the produce of Britain’s first organic cod farm arrives in supermarkets.

The glistening white fillets on sale in 200 Tesco stores cost up to £19.99 per kilo, compared with the usual £4 to £8 a kilo. Only wild salmon, at £21 per kilo, is more expensive.

“No Catch . . . Just Cod” is aimed at a generation of shoppers who have become wary of buying the fish after the collapse of North Sea stocks, now less than one tenth of their levels in the 1970s. Claimed to be the world’s first organically farmed, 100 per cent sustainable cod, it has already been endorsed by celebrities such as Demi Moore and Pierce Brosnan and has been served at one of the world’s most exclusive restaurants, the French Laundry in Napa Valley, California.

Unlike the “battery farms at sea” image of salmon farming, Shetland-based Johnson Seafarms say that the cod are raised in spacious circular cages, fed choice off-cuts of wild herring and mackerel and given toys, including ropes to chew on and tunnels to swim through.

From this morning an initial batch of about 1,500 tonnes of the fish are to be sold at Tesco stores across Britain. It is also being introduced at restaurants in Harvey Nichols stores and has been on the menu since last week at the Oxo Tower restaurant, on the South Bank in London.

Jeremy Bloor, head chef at the Oxo Tower restaurant, said: “The flesh is firmer, it’s got a really nice white flake, on it. But the best thing for me is that it is so fresh.

“It tastes somehow a little bit cleaner and the consistency is great.”

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