reLAKSation 25.
It's a Joke: In the last issue of reLAKSation (no 24), we referred to a prediction made by Kontali Analyse that salmon production could rise to over 2 million tonnes in the next 10-15 years. It has been pointed out to us that this forecast bears little relation to reality and is actually something of a joke.
The prediction business is quite an easy one, since very few people if any will ever remember what was said or not and more importantly, by then, most people will not even care.
However, this comment does raise the question as to whether the market will ever be able to absorb two million tonnes of salmon? The answer must be yes, provided, and it is a big proviso, that the salmon industry reconsiders the way in which it markets its produce.
Mr Liabo has based his estimates on current growth patterns. These have little relevance to the future, since any change in price can dramatically affect demand.
We at Callander McDowell take a wider view. If you consider just the EU market, this has a shortfall in fish supply of over 4 million tonnes a year. This deficit has to be imported from seas outside the EU, which are equally threatened by over-fishing due to a growing global demand for fish.
The only way that this demand can be satisfied without increasing the pressure on wild stocks is through farming. Of course, much of the demand is for traditional white fish species, which are not yet farmed in any significant volume. The shortage of white fish has pushed up the price and this is why consumers have turned to cheaper alternatives. Fortunately for the salmon industry, this demand is mainly for farmed salmon.
The question is can we farm these white fish species in sufficient volume at a low enough price to meet consumer demand. We are not yet convinced. However, if it isn't cheap enough, consumers will fail to buy it and farmed cod will be just a specialist market.
By comparison, low salmon prices mean that consumers will continue to view salmon as a low cost, value for money food, which they will increasingly buy as long as producers make sure that it is available in the forms that the consumer wants to buy.
The point is that as long as producers adapts to the ever changing marketplace then the market will not be the limit to future growth. Instead, it will be the industry's ability to grow the fish, which will ultimately be the limiting factor.
Two million tonnes of production might well be perceived as a joke, but if the industry ever produces this volume it is something of which it should be justifiably proud.
Celebrity Chefs: Over the past few years, British TV has been inundated with one cookery programme after another. These range from the serious recipe programmes to the trivial game show. Besides stimulating an interest in cooking in the viewing public, they have resulted in the creation of the celebrity chef, elevated from the restaurant kitchen to TV star.
These new TV stars would appear to be an ideal vehicle to help promote salmon to the public, in much the same way that other companies might want to use David Beckham, the footballer, to promote their goods. One or two chefs have been recruited to do exactly this.
However, an article in a local newspaper (Manchester Evening News) by their food writer Ray King asks whether TV cooking bares any relationship to the what the general public actually eats. Are they therefore the ideal people to promote our salmon?
Mr King suggests that it is no co-incidence that the proliferation of TV chefs has occurred just as the variety of supermarket ready meals has expanded to the point of disbelief. (He cites the case of vacuum packed boiled potatoes).
In much the same way he links the explosion of Indian fast food outlets to the efforts of TV chef Madhur Jaffrey. Her lavishly filmed cookery cum travelogue programmes demonstrated just how much time and effort goes into producing the authentic taste of Indian cookery. Thus, having had the taste buds roused, she has despatched the public out in droves to the local Indian take-away.
Mr King suggests that TV chefs today are no more clued up to what the public eat than when the first TV cookery programme appeared during the 1950s. In those days, the public could not afford most of the ingredients used, whilst today, people who can afford the fancy food, do not have the time to mess around with them. Instead, they buy the value added finished product instead. Those who cannot afford them, simply load junk food into the microwave.
The same view can be applied to the demonstrations of salmon cookery promoted at shows and exhibitions. Rather than promote the cookery, might the salmon industry be better served by providing their salmon in the finished form?
If these chefs are doing so little to translate interest in cookery into sales, might they have some value as being an ambassador for farmed salmon instead? The answer might be provided with a quote from top Scottish TV chef and restauranteur, Nick Nairn (who in the past has been used to promote salmon from some Scottish companies). According to GoFish (18th June) Mr Nairn shuns most farmed salmon. "The quality is no better than cat food" he said.
Dumping again!: - LR Enterprises, a Maine salmon farming company and a former member of the Fair Atlantic Salmon Trade (FAST group) has decided to seek protection under US anti-dumping laws and has submitted an action against Chile for dumping salmon on the US market.
When is the salmon industry, whether it is individual companies or national organisations, learn that dumping actions are not the answer to low prices. The salmon industry has changed over the past thirty years, from no farmed production at all to the several hundred thousand tonnes produced today. This has had a downward effect on prices and will continue to do so.
Low prices are now a feature of the modern salmon industry. Rather than whinge and whine and resort to legal measures, most of which have failed, farmers would be better served by developing their own strategic plan to improve their own margins.
The very nature of the salmon farming industry means that dumping margins are always present. Any ensuing dumping action is unlikely to benefit anyone (except the legal representatives).