Callander McDowell
Callander McDowell
reLAKSation no 417
High price: According to ‘Natural England’, three quarters of the English public would pay more for fish caught by methods that minimise damage to the marine environment. The survey was released by the British NGO to accompany their new report ‘Sea Fisheries: Steps to sustainability’. Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England told IntraFish that ‘over-fishing is one of the most significant environmental issues we face and it is clear from our research that the public are increasingly aware of the problems… and are willing to help address them’. We, at Callander McDowell believe that Dr Phillips is being a little too optimistic and perhaps that consumers may not respond in the way that they say they will.
However, before we discuss this survey, we would like to consider another report that was published by ‘The Fishsite’. ‘The Ecolabelling of Fisheries Products’ by Professor Cathy Roheim of the University of Rhode Island looks at the whether ecolabelled fisheries products can command a premium on price. Professor Roheim explains that it is actually a very difficult question to answer but to try to do so she examines a snapshot of a number of products in the British market. Oddly for a paper that is dated July 2009, the data used is from back in 2006 and comes from products scanned in the retail sector. Professor Roheim has used examples of salmon, pollock and hoki and before we consider her conclusions we would argue that her data is flawed and therefore it is impossible to draw any conclusions from this work
In the case of salmon, Professor Roheim has compared what she describes as three Alaskan salmon products. These are Bird’s Eye ‘Simply Fish’ garlic and herb salmon, Bird’s Eye ‘Simply Fish’ salmon with malted crumb and an example of own label salmon.
Professor Roheim has selected these examples because the Bird’s Eye products are MSC certified, whilst for comparison, the own label product is not. She also points out that these prices do not include any price promotions that may have occurred in the marketplace during the time period selected. Her graph is shown below:
At first sight, it does seem that for part of the period at least, consumers do seem willing to pay a premium price for MSC certified salmon but there are other explanations as to why there might be a price differential. Firstly, it would be expected that consumers would pay more for branded product than a similar own label version. There are plenty of examples of such differential pricing in every supermarket in Britain. Certainly, as a well established brand, Bird’s Eye products should be expected to be priced higher than comparable own label products. Secondly, the Bird’s Eye products have been subjected to added value processing and thus have a higher intrinsic value than natural salmon fillets would have. Thirdly, we don’t know what the own label product was that was used in this study nor from which supermarket it originated, so it is difficult to make a direct comparison.
Yet, we are still rather puzzled by this data. This is because we were also monitoring salmon products throughout this period and the data from Professor Roheim seems to display little resemblance to the data that we collected back then.
However we should first clarify that when Professor Roheim states that her graph shows three different salmon products, this is not exactly true. The two Bird’s Eye products are variation of the same coated product. The only difference being the flavour of the crumb used as the coating. Otherwise the products are of identical weight and identical price and in most cases, sold alongside each other. Professor Roheim shows some slight price differences between the two but as we have no idea about how the data was collected we are unable to draw any conclusion. For example, it is possible that the data is cumulative for all the supermarket chains or that it originates from just one. All we can do is look at our own records and see how they compare.
Our first problem arises with the time period used. Professor Roheim’s data starts from February 11th 2006 but our records show that the Bird’s Eye product was not available at that time. We have first recorded the product arriving in store during March 2006 and that was only in stores belonging to Asda. Morrison’s, Tesco and Iceland did not stock the Bird’s Eye products until May and the Coop in June, although the Coop only stocked the malted version.
With the exception of the Coop, the standard price of the Bird’s Eye product in all the supermarkets was £2.49 equating to a £1.04/100g. The price in the Coop was 30p higher at £2.79 equating to £1.16p/100g.
Although Professor Roheim says that prices were not promoted during this period, we recorded two price promotions. The first was in Asda at launch with the product priced at £1.50, a saving of 99p. The second occurred in Tesco during August when the product was on half price promotion. We have added this data to Professor Roheim’s graph and surprisingly, there is a strong correlation during August. There is also a drop in price during the Asda launch March although Professor Roheim records a slower price recovery.
Finally, we have looked through our records for any 340g products which would match with the own label product and we are unable to find anything similar. Those products of the right weight are either branded or not of the correct price. The graph indicates a price of about 75p/100g which would equate to a product price of about £2.50 but we cannot find anything to fit this profile at that time.
Professor Roheim presents two other graphs but neither offers any further clarification so we can only ponder her answer to the question ‘Is there a retail price premium?’ Her response is ‘We do not know’. This is not surprising since the data she used clearly tells her nothing at all.
We are left to return to the original question as to whether, if there is a price premium, are consumers are willing to pay it to buy sustainable fish?
We have to admit to being slightly dubious about the results of surveys that ask about issues which are perhaps not as mainstream as others. For example, Fishupdate.com recently reported about a YouGov poll commissioned by the Seal Protection Action Group and International Animal Rescue. This found that 58% of people believe that High Street retailers should not buy salmon from any suppliers that kill UK seals.
We are not debating the morals of killing seals but would ask that the pollsters were to ask the public of their concerns about salmon farming; we are in no doubt that killing seals would hardly figure. If, however, they were asked whether it is right that salmon farmers should stop killing seals then the response would be very high, even though until they had been asked that question, they had no thoughts on the subject at all.
In much the same way, questions asked as to whether people are prepared to pay more to buy sustainable fish will also receive a high response, which is exactly what Natural England discovered.
We, at Callander McDowell, are not convinced that when faced with a choice in store, that many consumers would be actually willing to put their hand deeper into their pockets to buy sustainable fish. We suspect that most consumers would expect that retailers already take a responsible approach and the fish they buy should be sourced from sustainable sources as a matter of right.
Our experience of this willingness to pay more for selected fish has show that what consumers say and what consumers do are two very different things. Back in the early 1990’s, the now defunct Scottish Salmon Board commissioned a survey that found that 72% of consumers were willing to pay more to buy salmon of Scottish origin. Since then, despite strenuous efforts to uncover even one example of differential pricing, we have not seen any evidence to show that British consumers will pay more for Scottish salmon than salmon of other origins.
In much the same way, we will be watching for examples of differential pricing of sustainably sourced fish but we suspect that despite the findings of this survey, there will be an unwillingness to pay more for sustainable fish. This becomes even more apparent when the results of the survey are examined in more detail. 72% of consumers did reply yes to the survey but only 26% of these said definitely. The other 46% said only probably. Of the remainder, 13% said probably not, 7% said definitely not and 9% said they didn’t know.
Thus only 26% have committed to pay more for sustainably sourced fish. Most of these consumers come from the ABC social class and thus probably have more disposable income to spend in support of sustainability. Such consumers probably shop at the higher end of retail sector and already feel that they are paying more for their fish anyway, even if the higher price is across their whole range of shopping.
It remains to be seen whether consumers put their commitment into practice. At the moment it is difficult to find examples to help draw any conclusion. We recently reported of one example where a store sells both certified and uncertified cod loin and both were sold at the same price. This has recently changed and one is now 20p/kg more expensive than the other. It is of course the uncertified that is now more expensive.
Non-story: This week, there was extensive press coverage of the publication of a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Professor Roz Naylor of Stanford University and a team of researchers. In essence the report suggested that the increased dependence of aquaculture to supply edible fish has put increased pressure on supplies of fishmeal and hence wild caught fish, and thus, there should be a move towards the use of alternative sources of feed.
It is rather surprising that what seems such a specialist paper received such widespread publicity but it quickly became apparent that the spin on the story could be very different. The fish and fisheries media reported that aquaculture now provides half the world’s fish whilst others such as the Times gave it the headline ‘Healthy eaters putting wild fish stocks at risk’
However on reading the paper, it quickly becomes apparent that this eminent group of researchers have relied too heavily on some out of date facts, which Dr Andrew Jackson of the IFFO has attempted to correct. Yet even this does not explain why a paper which offers little new has received so much coverage. It is only on reaching the acknowledgements of the actual paper that the reason becomes clear. The work was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation whose views on fish farming are well-known.
Yet, whilst this story has benefited from widespread and a well-funded publicity machine, the lack of anything new has ensured that it has quickly been lost within the plethora of more important news stories. Only the most hardened supporters of the anti-farming movement have tried to keep it in the news. One of these is the activist Alexandra Morton,
She has responded to Roz Naylor’s call that herbivorous species such as tilapia and carp do not need to be fed wild-caught fish and therefore are the ethical choice for many consumers. Professor Naylor does however recommend that the yields of these species should not be boosted by the inclusion of fishmeal in their feeds as this contributes to the depletion of wild stocks. The problem is that if Roz Naylor wants to encourage the consumption of the species then the limitation of water and land means that more fish need to be produced from less space and this can be only achieved if the yields are given an extra boost.
Alexandra Morton has jumped on this bandwagon telling Can West News that whilst aquaculture is a great idea, it has been poorly executed in Canada. She said that people are stuck on salmon. If, on the other hand, you want to be efficient and produce food, then you’ll do what’s been done in Asia for 10,000 years – you grow your fish, you take the waste from the fish and grow vegetables and you then have crops to sell. Instead, we’re using more fish to create fish but if you really want to feed people than you should feed them what farm fish are eating.
Ms Morton clearly would prefer to adopt the Asian system in Canada but she is so focussed on sea lice, she hasn’t realised that the reason why integrated pond culture has been practised in Asia for 10,000 years and not in Canada is because these herbivorous fish are also warm-water species. They need high water temperatures to grow so it’s unlikely that Canada is the best environment for this type of aquaculture. The reason why salmon farming works in areas where wild salmon live is because the water temperature range meets the needs of the salmon.
Pollocks: According to SeaFish, pollock has powered into Britain’s seafood top ten with sales of 13,000 tonnes making the eighth most popular species. This is a big change for the fish as it was once only considered fit to give the cat. However, the credit crunch has been attributed to raising pollock’s popularity as consumers look for more affordable fish.
The Daily Telegraph has also reported that sales have benefited from an intriguing publicity stunt by Sainsbury’s last April. As we have discussed in previous issues of reLAKSation, the supermarket chain rebranded the fish as ‘Colin’.
This name change was part of a promotion and did not last for long. There were some objections because the name Colin was not recognised as a traditional name of the fish and could confuse consumers. However, it seems that everything to do with pollock is confusing.
Whilst pollock sales have rocketed to 13,000 tonnes, they are not all of the same fish, but rather two different species. However, they are used as if they are interchangeable.
Back in 2007, the Talking Retail website also reported a 44% increase in sales of pollock and then discussed the forthcoming launch of Cornish line-caught pollock by Waitrose as if the two stories were connected.
The reality is that whilst it seems that locally caught pollock is now returning to popularity, it is sales of Alaskan pollock that have taken off. This is because it is a cheap alternative to cod and haddock and can be easily substituted in the type of frozen coated products that are popular with British consumers. At the same time, some Alaskan pollock is caught from MSC certified fisheries and hence can be promoted as the sustainable option. It is this increase in coated products which we believe is mainly responsible for the growth of pollock sales. By comparison local pollock is still relatively hard to find in the retail sector.
Although, sales of Alaskan pollock have rocketed, it will be interesting to see whether growth continues in the same way. The increasing availability of lower price cod has brought about the recent reappearance of the fish in frozen coated products. Cod may soon replace Alaskan pollock in this sector and thus next year, pollock may have lost its current popularity and fallen outside the UK’s top ten.
Finally, a comment in the Daily Mail by food writer Felicity Cloake, suggests that renaming fish does often result in an increase in popularity. She cites the examples of Cornish sardines (pilchards), Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish), Orange Roughy (Slimehead) and Rock salmon (dogfish). She adds that worryingly, the toothfish and slimehead are now so popular that they are in danger of extinction. She hopes that Colin (pollock) isn’t next. Given the latest article in the Economist magazine, this may be more likely than we think. This is something for future comment.