reLAKSation 143. 

Healthy eating or healthy industry?: On the eve of the recent Glasgow based Aquaculture 2004 exhibition, the Scottish Executive announced a £3million two year campaign to promote the health benefits of eating Scottish farmed salmon. Half the funding is due to come from the European FIFG scheme and the other half from the industry. According to IntraFish, the aim is to win back consumer confidence in farmed salmon following previously well publicised health scares through a range of advertising and industry/retail partnerships. Aquaculture Minister, Alan Wilson said that the benefits of eating oily fish are well proven.

This is a message which Kathleen Zelman, a registered dietician, will tell delegates at the forthcoming AquaVision conference. She will say that the industry must send out many more positive messages about salmon in the face of the negative press. She argues that the message must be repeated to consumers over and over again. She suggests that the prevalence of heart disease alone presents marketing opportunities for salmon producers as salmon, being rich in omega 3 fatty acids, is an ideal ingredient for heart conscious consumers.

Whilst Kathleen Zelman argues that this positive message cannot be stressed enough times, we at Callander McDowell wonder whether this latest campaign will convince sufficient consumers who don’t eat salmon to start doing so or whether it will just reinforce the message to those consumers who already eat salmon. The difference between the two is important because Alan Wilson hopes that improved consumer confidence will help safeguard the industry and its associated jobs. Perhaps, Mr Wilson is not convinced that this campaign will help and so why he has had to turn to Brussels for more-wide ranging safeguards?

This is not the first time that the Scottish industry has actively promoted the health benefits of eating salmon.

The first is from 1992 and the other from a couple of years ago. Despite the repeated campaigns, the message is clearly not yet getting through.

One reason could be that the Scottish industry have in the past conducted their promotions through the supermarket wet fish counter or fishmongers. People who buy fish through these outlets are already confirmed fish consumers. By comparison, those consumers who never eat fish do not stop at the fish counter and therefore health benefits of fish consumption never reach them. Unfortunately, the generous largess of the FIFG scheme is probably not sufficient to extend to getting the message to the wider public. It is therefore questionable as to the value of this type of promotion and it makes us wonder whether this money could be used to much better effect to secure the long term future of the Scottish industry.

In addition to arranging this finance, the Scottish Executive have actively supported the application for safeguards saying that the industry needs help in face of cheap imports. We, at Callander McDowell have repeatedly argued that whilst the Scottish industry may not like cheap imports, consumers clearly do. At the same time, if the industry wants to encourage consumers to eat healthily, then the salmon must be priced at an affordable level. After all, it has been shown high prices do deter consumers from eating healthy diets. We would therefore suggest that if the Scottish Executive want to help the independent Scottish industry, they should help them improve their awareness of what is actually happening in the marketplace so they can respond with the most appropriate products. It must be a more effective use of funds to put these independent farmers on a bus and take them on a round trip visit of the most important market sectors so they can see what is happening for themselves. The Scottish Executive might also benefit from such a trip for if they were more aware of the market, they might see that at least one company has taken the initiative to promote the health benefits of salmon without the support of this campaign. This company have achieved this by simply changing the labelling on their products.

The ongoing public debate about obesity in the UK may suggest that awareness of the benefits of healthy eating is at an all time high. Yet surprisingly, a survey by iVillage.co.uk, a website for women, reported in the Tesco magazine, has found that only 10% of adults actually bother to read any of the information on food labels. Thus most consumers are not actually aware of the health benefits of the foods they buy. The fish processing company Young’s has completely changed the labels on its fresh salmon prepacks, seemingly to take this into account.

The key parts of the text of the new labels that stand out as ‘Omega 3’, ‘Help heart health’ and ‘Naturally rich in protein’. This message is reinforced by use of a heart shaped background. Consumers cannot be left in any doubt as to the message this pack aims to give without having to closely examine the label. Whilst the salmon industry may not like the fact that the words ‘salmon fillet’ are much less prominent, the fact is that these new labels do highlight the healthy benefit of eating the contents of the pack for the heart.

Whilst the industry always tend to target confirmed fish eaters, the Young’s pack tends to reach a much wider audience. This is because the Young’s pack is often on promotion and therefore is displayed on the gondola ends used for promotions. Many more customers look at this display area, including many who usually never buy fish. The distinct packaging at least gets the customers’ attention and raises their awareness and it is likely that the label change did not cost £3 million.

We, at Callander McDowell, have regularly argued that the marketplace is constantly changing and the industry must respond to these changes or get left behind. Young’s Seafood has provided a clear example that this is very much the case. 

Does size matter?: IntraFish report that the Chilean newspaper Estrangia has claimed that Chilean salmon production will soon surpass that of Norway so that Chile will be the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon. President of  Chilean industry’s representative body, SalmonChile responded by saying that Chilean producers are not concerned about the size of their production but would rather concentrate on it’s quality.

Its rather sad that the salmon industry has become too concerned about what other producers are doing rather than focus on their own production. Much of the gossip about the size of Chilean production originated in Norway because there is a belief that as the leading salmon producing nation, Norway should maintain this position and not let others claim this accolade. However, we at Callander McDowell wonder what all the fuss is about. Norwegian producers should be pleased that their technology has spread around the world and allowed those with longer coastlines to bring more farmed salmon to the world’s markets.

In much the same way, the Scots have for too long looked to Norway for the source of their problems when they should be concentrating on how they can profitably bring their own product to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, there is far too much bickering in the aquaculture industry. Accusing others of dumping has become too fashionable when market solutions should be sought instead.

The market for fish and seafood is huge and is still growing. There is plenty of opportunity for all aquaculture producers to gain a large share of this market. The problem will be that consumers will be deterred from buying aquaculture produce and will turn to alternative proteins for their meal solutions. The risk will be that these proteins may not be even fish or seafood but rather pizza, sausage or similar.

The EU’s safeguard committee postponed their planned meeting last week. We can only hope that the extra time now available will be used to realise that any quotas might damage the market for all farmed salmon, including that produced in Scotland. Any restriction on supply could force up prices so that the many consumers seeking value for money protein, who represent the bulk of current market demand, opt not to buy salmon and seek cheaper alternatives instead.

Salmon producers need to realise that their competitors are not their colleagues from other nations, but other proteins especially those that are not from the sea.

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