reLAKSation 224. Callander McDowell
Christmas Offers: In the run up to Christmas, British supermarkets have again offered salmon at discounted prices. We have summarised the offers below and have provided the data from previous years for comparison. It is evident that these Christmas offers have changed little over the past five years with most supermarkets repeating the discounts offered in previous years. This year, Asda has slashed the price of whole salmon, however other supermarkets have not followed and prices have remained generally similar to last year. This is against a background of market interference by the European Commission and the consequent enforced price rises. In the UK, Asda have sent a clear message to the Commission that it is the consumer who drives the market not the European bureaucrats. This message has been echoed in France by the supermarket giant Auchan, whose whole salmon have been selling for the equivalent of £2.70/kg.
Christmas
prices for whole salmon are summarised as follows, together with the prices
recorded in previous years:
Asda.
December 2005.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £2.98/kg (Save £1.40/kg)
December 2004.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.18/kg (Save £1.20/kg)
December 2003.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.24/g (Save £1.14/kg)
December 2002.
Fresh whole Scottish/ Norwegian salmon £3.22/kg (Save £1.16/kg)
December 2001.
Whole fresh salmon £3.19/kg
Whole prepacked salmon £3.99/kg
December 2000.
Whole prepacked salmon £4.20/kg
Morrisons:
December 2005.
Whole Scottish salmon £4.39/kg (Standard price)
December 2004.
Whole Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Standard price)
December 2003.
Whole Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Standard price)
December 2002.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.95/kg. (Save £0.43p/kg)
Chilled whole prepacked Scottish salmon £3.95/kg (Save £0.43/kg)
December 2001.
Whole salmon - fresh and prepack £4.38/kg
December 2000.
Whole salmon - fresh and prepacks £4.48/kg
Sainsburys:
December 2005.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.49/kg (Save £3.49/kg)
Chilled whole prepacked Norwegian or Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Save £4/kg)
December 2004.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.28/kg (Save £3.31/kg)
Chilled whole prepacked Norwegian or Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Save £4/kg)
December 2003.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Save £4/kg)
Chilled whole prepacked Norwegian or Scottish salmon £4.99/kg (Save £2/kg)
December 2002.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £3.99/kg (Save £4/kg)
Chilled whole prepacked Norwegian or Scottish salmon £4.49/kg (Save £2.99/kg)
December 2001.
Fresh whole salmon £3.49/kg
Whole salmon prepack £4.49/kg
December 2000.
Whole fish £4.63/kg
Tesco:
December 2005.
Fresh whole salmon £3.29/kg (Save £3.29/kg)
December 2004.
Fresh whole salmon £3.18/kg (Save £3.41/kg)
December 2003.
Fresh whole salmon £3.29/kg (Save £3.28/kg)
December 2002.
Fresh whole salmon £3.29/kg (Save £3.40/kg)
December 2001.
Fresh whole salmon £3.19/kg
December 2000.
Fresh whole salmon- fresh and prepacked £3.24/kg
Waitrose:
December 2005.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £5.99/kg (Save £1.50/kg)
December 2004.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £4.99/kg (Save £2/kg)
December 2003.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £4.99/kg (Save £2/kg)
December 2002.
Fresh whole Scottish salmon £4.99/kg (Save £1.50/kg)
Fresh whole Scottish organic salmon £6.79/kg (Save £2/kg)
December 2001.
Fresh whole salmon £4.99/kg
What's
really in your Christmas dinner?: According
to Steve Phelps, Executive Producer at Twenty Twenty
production company, who were responsible for the Despatches documentary
on UK's Channel 4, the farmed salmon industry had missed the point about the TV
documentary shown just prior to Christmas. We, at Callander McDowell, think so
too.
This
programme was not an attack on the salmon industry, it was an attack on the food
industry as a whole. The intention of the programme was not to focus on the
salmon industry but to question how all our food is produced in the context of a
traditional Christmas dinner. Any viewer responding to every claim made in the
programme would be left with a plate of just sprouts.
The
programme looked at all three courses beginning with smoked salmon as a starter.
It then went on to look at the main course - turkey (welfare issues and food
poisoning) - Sprouts (good for you)
- Sausages/gammon (labelling/welfare issues/ traceability) and then desert -
Christmas pudding (inflated prices) Mince pies (trans-fats).
Jane
Moore, the newspaper columnist who presented the programme said that if an
average consumer ate a typical Christmas menu then they would eat the calorific
equivalent of 27 chocolate bars, 300g fat equating to 40 jam donuts and 20g of
salt, which is 3 times the recommended daily intake. This was the overridding
message that the programme aimed to get across.
Whilst
the response from Scottish Quality Salmon focussed on the question of omega-3
fatty acids, the part of the programme dedicated to salmon raised a couple of
other points worth a mention. The first is the readiness of such programmes to
ask Michelin starred chefs to comment on mass market food. It is always
guaranteed to illicit a negative response. In this case Jane Moore spoke to
Raymond Blanc who compared a farmed salmon with a wild one. The programme did
say that the salmon did differ in price
with £4/kg for supermarket salmon as compared to £50/kg for wild. Clearly,
Jane Moore is shopping in the wrong place for her wild salmon because we can
certainly buy it for less than half that price. But, of course, those willing to
pay a premium for their food don't look too much at the price. This is why
Raymond Blanc can charge £45 a head for his luncheon menu (the only one
containing salmon -organic not wild). We suppose this is the cheap option since
fish such as monkfish, and turbot that appear on the a'la carte menu cost about
£38.
The
other issue is that the Despatches team sent 10 samples of salmon flesh from 6
supermarkets for analysis. They found that the fat content of salmon flesh
varied as follows:
Wild
6%
Morrison
6%
Asda
16.2%
Waitrose
19.9%
Sainsburys
19.7%
Tesco
21.8%
This
is quite a variation and we wonder how accurate the analysis really was. We are
sure that the independent Scottish industry would claim that the high fat fish
come from Norway, but we know that some of these fish were of Scottish origin.
Perhaps, it is not enough to focus on the omega-3 but time to look at the wider
fat issues.
Finally,
whilst the industry and the news agencies focused on the Channel 4 Despatches
programme, they appeared to miss the fact that on BBC 2 at exactly the same
time, celebrity chef Rick Stein was extolling the virtues of farmed salmon,
albeit organic.
In
his Christmas edition of Food Hero's he
visited Angus Macmillan at his farm in Benbecula. Mr Stein told viewers that
every time he mentions fish farming on one of his programmes he gets many
letters saying that he shouldn't feature such 'devils work'. He responds to such
criticism by saying that just as in traditional farming where there are both
good and bad farmers, so there is in fish farming. He said that this was the
first time that he had been to a salmon farm in open waters and was impressed
with the fish and the way that they were raised. Angus told him that he aims to
farm salmon in the best positive way in tandem with nature.
It
was good to hear Mr Macmillan extolling the virtues of his own fish and we, at
Callander McDowell would certainly encourage him continuing doing
so.......rather than spending his time trying to persuade the European
Commission to exclude his competitors from the European marketplace.
Where
have you been?: Hidden amongst all the news
stories about MIP's, the Russian ban and negative publicity, IntraFish columnist
Drew Cherry made a single statement which struck a cord with us at Callander
McDowell. He wrote "I've never seen anything quite like it." What he
referred to was a typical offering of seafood at a British supermarket.
It
seems that during a recent visit to London he decided to buy some food to
supplement his standard in flight meal on his flight to the US. What he found in
this London supermarket was an amazing variety of fish in prepacked sealed
trays, looking as fresh as the day it was packed. He was also surprised to find
that each pack provided key information such as price, weight, cooking
recommendations, area of origin and even the method of harvest.
Furthermore, and although his visit occurred at least two weeks before
Christmas, he found that the store had stocked all types of chilled ready to
serve seafood platters with all kinds of different items and combinations. As he
wrote, he has never seen anything quite like it. Mr Cherry then went on to
express the view that this represents the future of seafood and said that it
even became more apparent to him when he visited a US retailer a few days later
and saw a shameful picture of how seafood can be supplied.
Having
focussed on the marketplace for over fifteen year, we, at Callander McDowell,
are not surprised by Mr Cherry's comments. We are not at all surprised that in
common with many working in the seafood industry, Mr Cherry has little idea as
to what is happening in the marketplace. The salmon industry is typical. This is
why the whole focus of the industry has moved towards Brussels because if the
industry knew what the market actually wanted, it might occur to them that they
would be better served trying to meet this demand. In the UK, the salmon market
has become incredibly developed and diversified and seemingly it has done so
without the involvement or cooperation of the salmon industry. The extent to
this development can be best illustrated by our own monthly market report which
runs to about 50 pages and focuses just on farmed salmon and trout. No other
market is so well developed, which is why the UK can be described as the real
powerhouse of salmon development.
Production
in Norway and Chile may exceed that from Scotland, but the less well developed
home markets provide some excuse as to why these industries have not seized the
opportunities that exist. The Scottish industry has no such excuse.
The
real answer to the problems in the salmon marketplace lies on the shelves of the
British supermarket, not in DG Trade in Brussels. Perhaps, if the salmon
industry were to follow Mr Cherry's example, they may have their eyes opened
too.