reLAKSation 362. Callander McDowell
Madness: Fritz-Harald Wenig’s alleged indiscretions which we discussed in the last issue of reLAKSation have reignited interest in the question of whether farmed salmon has ever been dumped into the European market. We, at Callander McDowell, have always argued that the decline of the wild catch means that the world must increasingly rely on aquaculture. Every farmed fish produced means that one less fish needs to be caught from the sea and thus it is impossible for farmers to ever produce enough. Yet, the European Commission have decreed that Norway’s salmon farmers have over-produced and as a result dumped excess fish on the European market. Anyone with the slightest bit of commonsense would see that the more farmed fish we produce, the more we can protect wild fisheries and the livelihoods of those that depend on them.
Unfortunately, the one thing that the European Commission seems to lack, when it comes to fish supply, is commonsense. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, commentator George Monbiot, argues that the EU has two big fish problems. The first is that as a failure to manage them properly, its own fisheries cannot meet European demand. The second problem is that rather than confront their fisheries lobbies and decommission surplus boats, the EU has tried to solve both problems by sending its fishermen to West Africa including Senegal. As a result, Senegal’s fisheries are in rapid decline and the local fleet has fallen by half. The price of fish has risen and many now go hungry and as George Monbiot points out, in return for a wretched amount of foreign exchange, the country’s primary source of protein has been looted.
Senegal’s government now refuses to renew their fisheries agreement with the EU, but most European boats have found their way around this by registering their boats as Senegalese buying up quotas from the local fishermen and sending the harvest to Europe.
Peter Mandelson has been trying to negotiate an economic partnership with African countries but many have refused to sign including Senegal. This is because Mandelson’s trade agreement would allow European companies the right to establish themselves freely on African soil and prevent the host country from discriminating against them. Senegal would be forbidden to impose measures to ensure that the fish sustain their own industry.
In response to these comments, Peter Power, Peter Mandelson’s spokesman for trade wrote to the Guardian to say that Mr Monbiot has used his column to repeat the inaccuracies and allegations made by ActionAid and others against the trade deal. He goes on to say that in 2006, EU access to Senegalese waters amounted to 3% of total production in 2006 and this is not part of the trade agreement. Instead, any future agreement would only cover EXCESS STOCKS that local fleets do not fish.
This of course elicited an immediate response from Mr Monbiot who writes “that it is not often that a bureaucrat makes a scientific discovery. So hats off to Peter Power, who has invented a new ecological concept – excess fish. Seeking to justify policies that would ensure that European trawlers can continue to keep fishing in West African waters, Mr Power claims that they will be removing only the regions ‘excess stocks’.” Mr Monbiot goes on to say “that someone has to do it. Were it not for our brave trawlermen battling nature’s delinquent productivity, the seas would become choked with these disgusting scaly creatures.”
It seems to us that so desperate is the European market for fish, that the EU’s trade directorate is happy for European fishermen to plunder the distant harvest of others yet when a near neighbour sends the market farmed produce that would help reduce the dependence on such African fish, the same directorate has sought trade measures to limit the amount of these farmed fish coming into Europe. It makes no sense.
But then, there is very little sense when it comes to the European Commission and fish supply. The fisheries directorate is keen to promote increased aquaculture but then prefers that we over-fish the world’s wild stocks rather than source farmed species from outside the European Community.
George Monbiot has discussed this issue in greater detail – Guardian 9th Sept and 26th August also at www.monbiot.com. Peter Powers’ letter appeared in the Guardian on Sept 4th www.guardian.co.uk
Organic Fortnight: Morrisons supermarket ran a full page advert in the tabloid press this week to highlight that they had reduced the price of many organic products by 25% to celebrate Organic Fortnight (6th – 21st September). Other supermarkets are also offering discounts on organic products. Waitrose are offering 3 for the price of 2 on organic fruit and vegetables. With so many food celebrations, is it any wonder that consumers are simply becoming weary of celebration overload? At least the organic sector in the form of the Soil Association have organised some major events throughout the country which is more than can be said for similar food related celebrations.
SeaFish Fortnight: As part of Seafood Fortnight, Seafish have compiled a list of eighteen new fish and seafood recipes from top chefs and nutritionists. The list includes three recipes from chef and TV presenter Simon Rimmer. We, at Callander McDowell are familiar with his work as he used to own a restaurant ‘Greens’ (still running) in Manchester where our office is based. ‘Greens’ had a widely held reputation as a vegetarian dining experience. Simon now has a new restaurant, ‘Earle’ in South Manchester but he now cooks a more varied menu.
Simon has divides his time between chefing and TV presenting. One of the shows he hosts is Sunday morning’s ‘Something for the Weekend’ a light hearted mix of interviews and cooking in a show broadcast live. Last week, one of his guests was TV actress Natalie Casey who joined Simon in the kitchen with co-presenter Tim Lovejoy. The conversation went as follows:
Simon: We’re going to do smoked mackerel fishcakes. Mackerel is one of those fish that is a sustainable fish at the moment and it is great around British shores and of course it is SEAFISH FORTNIGHT which is a really good time to promote…
Tim interjects laughing: It’s what?
Simon. It’s SEAFISH FORTNIGHT
Tim to Natalie: He’s just made that up!
Tim laughing: I can’t believe I’ve missed it this year!
Tim: How far into SEAFISH FORTNIGHT are we?
Simon: It started on the 5th.
Tim: Did it?
Simon: Yes. It’s a celebration of British seafood. We have over a hundred species of fish around our shores. It excites me.
Natalie: It’s good for your brain.
Simon: It is good for your brain, for your heart and for your health. So we’ve got mackerel…..
Natalie interjects laughing: SEAFISH FORTNIGHT
Natalie: Next week Chicken monthly.
Simon joking: No its not. It’s peanut butter. Everyone knows that for goodness sake.
Simon continues with the recipe.
It’s not really possible, in deconstructing the verbal exchange, to convey the mockery that was made of the Seafood Fortnight promotion. Clearly, Simon tried to use the occasion to promote the Seafood Fortnight message but failed not only because the whole exchange became a huge joke but also because Simon didn’t appear to know the correct name for the promotion calling it instead Seafish fortnight. As someone who SeaFish have engaged to participate in the promotion, even Simon hadn’t really got the proper message.
Consumers behaving part 2: In the last issue of reLAKSation, we discussed some of the questions posed by SeaFish to help understand the various processes consumers use as they decide to buy fish and seafood. We would now like to consider the final two areas, barriers to purchase and consumer awareness.
SeaFish want to know what are the barriers to people purchasing seafood? Presumably, this refers to people who don’t buy fish and not those who do. SeaFish actually answer their own question by suggesting that smell, bones, skin, lack of knowledge on preparation and cooking are all barriers and they are, especially amongst the younger members of the public. This is because they have simply not been exposed to fresh fish and seafood and therefore shy away from it. SeaFish therefore want to know whether this means that they are more likely to buy pre-prepared products instead. The answer to this is yes, if they are determined to try fish and seafood because they have heard about the benefits of eating fish and want to do something about it. However, it is more likely that those who are willing to give fish a try will select those products that look the least like fish. This is why meaty fish such as tuna are popular.
SeaFish also want to understand the effect of price especially in the current economic climate. Are consumers more concerned about price than other issues such as quality and sustainability? We certainly think they are. Most consumers tend to trust their retailer to provide fish that are of an acceptable quality and are sustainable anyway. They don’t necessarily believe that they should pay more for it. SeaFish also want to know whether consumers are aware of price increases and do they consider it to be expensive. We don’t think so. Most of the major retailers have protected their customers from major price rises so most have not seen any significant increase in their shopping bill for fish. As a result, we don’t think that many consumers have opted to substitute seafood with another protein, especially as it is other proteins that have seen the greatest price rises.
Finally, SeaFish want to know whether consumers would buy cheaper species to save money. We think that for the majority, this is unlikely. There has been much said about changing to other species in order to address the issue of sustainability but sales of alternative species are still small by comparison to the main species. Let us not forget that salmon is the second most popular species in terms of volume for a reason. It is farmed, sustainable and represents real value for money.
The remaining research area is consumer awareness. This includes the question as to how knowledgeable consumers are regarding about where their seafood is sourced. We suspect that most consumers have little idea about the supply chain and probably are not that interested. This is because they have little choice. For example, no retailer will offer and promote the same fish from two different catch areas. Consumers will trust their retailers to source their fish from the best source available.
SeaFish then ask whether country of origin is important to consumers. We don’t think so. Certainly when it comes to salmon, consumers buy what they perceive to be the best value available. A number of supermarkets often display packs of salmon from more than one origin and consumers do not select one from the other. They are equally happy to buy both. In the case of wild fish, the BBC TV programme Trawlermen are shown fishing in Norwegian waters and then bringing fish back to land in Scotland. Does this make the fish Scottish? They are certainly not local. SeaFish ask whether local seafood is important but local is often meant to mean within a few miles which clearly doesn’t apply to fish. Locality is probably more important in the restaurant trade rather than the retail sector.
The next question asks what consumers think about the point of sale and in store messaging on or around the seafood aisles and counters and whether it influences buying behaviour. This is a simple question to answer because largely such promotional material doesn’t exist unless designed to highlight price discounts. We doubt that what material is present really influences many customers because it usually is so poor or poorly displayed.
SeaFish are also interested to know whether consumers look for specific logos like the MSC and do they understand terms like responsibly sourced and line caught. We suspect that only the most committed eco-consumers specifically look for such logos and understand what they mean. It is likely that those who are aware of what it means would probably consider it an added benefit if the fish they buy is labelled in this way but many probably do not select the product specifically because of it.
Interestingly, seafoodintelligence.com have just reported on a survey commissioned by Waitrose and the MCS that found that most plentiful and ethical fish have yet to find favour amongst Scottish consumers. Three quarters of those polled selected just one of four species as their favourite fish – haddock, prawns, salmon & tuna (Scots prefer haddock to cod).
Finally, SeaFish want to know consumers think of new species such as pollock, basa and tilapia. Although they group these three species together, they fall into different markets. Alaskan pollock is mainly substituted into breaded and battered fish instead of cod. Take up of this species is good because the processing companies have reduced the availability of these cod products and have promoted Alaskan Pollock in its place.
Basa and tilapia are still only niche species for which availability is still very patchy. Prices are not sufficiently low enough to really persuade consumers to move away from traditional species. SeaFish wonder whether the name of new species can be a deterrent to purchase. They want to know what sort of reaction consumers give when they are told the name of the species rather than its marketing name e.g. Vietnamese catfish instead of basa. This is a largely irrelevant question since the name Vietnamese catfish is not used in the retail sector. Young’s have already conducted extensive research and found that basa was the most acceptable name which is why they use it. The use of different names is not new to the UK market. When it was popular, dogfish was widely known as Rock Salmon. This is no different to the use of the name basa. However, in the case of Pangasius (Vietnamese catfish), the UK market has yet to adopt a single name as at least one store uses the name Cobbler instead. This usage originates from the Australian market.
Of course any survey ultimately depends on the answers given by the consumers themselves. Whether these answers can be trusted is another matter. We have often found that what consumers say and what consumers do are two very different things. We’ll have to wait and see what they say.