reLAKSation 129.
Perpetuating
the myth: EU
Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler told IntraFish that overproduction was
clearly the trigger for the UK application for safeguard measures on salmon. He
said that as long as more salmon is produced than is needed, there is less
likelihood of finding an alternative to this request for safeguards.
We,
at Callander McDowell, are not convinced by Mr Fischler’s reasoning. If more
salmon is being produced than is needed, then somewhere, there must be an excess
of fish which cannot be sold. Yet, if such an excess exists, the industry
remains surprisingly quiet about it. Perhaps this is because there is no such
excess at all and every salmon that is produced continues to find a ready
market. It is unfortunate that someone so prominent as Franz Fischler continues
to perpetuate this myth of overproduction, which has been in circulation ever
since prices first fell, back in 1989. The Scottish industry has been arguing
for so many years that overproduction is their main problem, that it is now
sadly accepted in Brussels as fact. This is despite the reality that the
presence of increased volumes of farmed salmon in the market place has
alleviated the many shortages in supplies of over-fished marine species.
Mr
Fischler told IntraFish that salmon is a special case, but this is a fallacy.
The only reason that salmon may be judged to be a special case is that it is the
first farmed fish to be traded in the EU in such large volumes and the fisheries
experts, who usually spend their time trying to protect stocks of wild fish have
not yet really come to terms with how farming offers a completely different
management option. Fish farming might be said to have more in common with
agriculture rather than fisheries, which is why the Fisheries Commissioner is
finding it so difficult to come up with any solutions to Scottish concerns and
why he has to leave the current problems to his colleagues in the Commission’s
trade department to resolve.
Unfortunately,
it is not just the myth of overproduction which is being perpetuated by Mr
Fischler. He also told IntraFish EU consumers are very interested in quality and
that cheap imported farmed fish is usually not of top quality. We, at Callander
McDowell, find this very difficult to believe. It is possible that Mr Fischler
may not have read the British application document but this includes a statement
that says that seven multi-national companies, predominantly Norwegian owned or
with large Norwegian interests, account for 70% of Scottish salmon production by
volume. Is Mr Fischler suggesting that these companies do not produce their fish
to the same quality standards
outside the EU as they do in Scotland? After all, they most likely use the same
management techniques, the same feed suppliers, the same equipment suppliers
across all their operations. Why should their Norwegian production be of
inferior quality to that produced in Scotland? Perhaps, he is not comparing like
with like?
It
is equally difficult to comprehend Mr Fischler’s reasoning concerning consumer
choice. Why are EU consumers, who are apparently so interested in quality, so
willing to buy cheap imported inferior quality salmon? The only explanation is
that consumers are unable to perceive any difference between imported and EU
produced fish? Certainly, this appears to be exactly what is happening.
Consumers are simply buying the salmon which meets their requirement for value
for money fish. They prefer to leave it to their retailer to ensure that the
fish they buy meets acceptable quality standards. Such buying behaviour can be
readily seen in the UK market where the labelled Tartan Quality Mark has almost
disappeared and in France where Label Rouge salmon sales account for only 5,000
tonnes a year. If consumers were more convinced by these quality marks, they
would have a much higher profile in their respective markets than they do.
The
problem for Mr Fischler is that he continues to perpetuate the idea between what
European farmers would like to achieve in their marketplace and what they
actually do. Mr Fischler does believe that in the longer term, growing demand
for fish might bring about a rebalancing between supply and demand but if he
were to encourage a change of ideas so that his department and subsequently the
industry, started to think more in terms of under-marketing rather than
over-production, he may be able to provide workable solutions in the short,
rather than the longer term. However, he first needs to stop perpetuating these
myths about what salmon farming once was and support instead what salmon farming
has now become.
Giving
it away?: Dr Constantin Vamvakas. Head of the
Aquaculture Unit of the European Commission’s fisheries department told
IntraFish that he was horrified by the way in which many European supermarkets
reacted to the recent Science report. He said that overnight they cut the price
of farmed salmon by 30-40%. This, he believes was irresponsible as it gave out a
message saying that there is something wrong with the fish and that they wanted
to get rid of it quickly. He said that this is a very bad policy and he may be
right, if it were true.
IntraFish
spoke to two supermarket groups, who both said that they had not cut their
prices at all in response to the Science article and the vast majority of
consumers had continued to buy salmon as usual.
Dr
Vamvakas was not alone in criticising supermarkets for their apparent price
cuts. Struan Stevenson, Chairman of the European Parliamentary Fisheries
Committee also said that prices had taken a noticeable nose dive since the
publication of the Science article.
We, at Callander McDowell, would openly challenge both Dr Vamvakas and Mr Stevenson to provide specific examples of which supermarkets have discounted salmon since this latest food scare because we routinely monitor salmon prices in over twenty supermarket groups in the UK and France and we have seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any such discounting other than the usual and regular promotional offers. We have only seen one example of a very attractive deal on salmon fillets, but this was only last week, long after the furore of the Science articles had died down. All the other salmon products in the same store group remained at their usual price.
These so far unsubstantiated reports of price discounts are both part of wider criticism of the supermarket chains for their role in creating the current crisis over safeguard measures. Mr Stevenson claims that supermarkets are forcing down the prices paid to farmers, whilst keeping retail prices high. Sadly, it is just as easy to lay the blame with the supermarkets as it is with overseas producers. Mr Stevenson, as both the Chairman of the European Parliamentary Fisheries Committee and as a Scottish MEP, probably finds it difficult to come to terms with the idea that perhaps the fundamental problem is with the European salmon industry itself in that it has yet failed to address the question of what consumers actually want to buy, not what the industry, Mr Stevenson, Dr Vamvakas or Mr Fischler appear to want them to buy!