Callander McDowell
Callander McDowell
reLAKSation no 418
Twitter ye not: The Guardian newspaper recently reported that ‘Facebook is done’ due to the growing exodus away from this popular social network website. Virginia Hefferman of the New York Times said that this disillusioned departure has been prompted by the realisation that Facebook was no longer a social club but has become increasingly beholden to corporate interests. Facebook has become uncool, just like other websites, such as MySpace, before it.
The backlash against Facebook has come just as SeaFish launched a presence on the website under the name seafood2aweek, the aim of which is to encourage consumers to eat two portions of seafood a week. Using Facebook to convey their message appears to be rather a good idea. The perception of Facebook is that it is mainly used by younger people (the site was established by university students to allow them to keep in touch with their friends) and as younger people account for the lowest seafood consumption, Facebook would seem the ideal medium to deliver a targeted message.
Unfortunately, Facebook escaped its original university audience and has been hijacked by the public at large. This is why it has become more well-known and caught the attention of commercial interests like SeaFish. This has made it less attractive even though interest had already begun to wane.
Back in mid August, IntraFish reported that seafood2aweek had nearly 1000 fans. The number has now increased to just over 1800. A quick trawl through some of this number shows that the typical fan is far from young but much more middle aged. Many of these fans probably signed up in passing interest and do not keep a regular eye on the site. We suspect that most only signed up, not for the message, but rather the semi-humorous approach taken by the site in order to pique user interest. This mainly takes the form of questions which the fans can answer.
One question was ‘where do you think the most (sic) of the Cod we eat come from?’
The answers from fans as listed together with a response from seafood2aweek:
iceland!!
the sea
Asda’s fish counter
the sea!!!!!!!
Atlantic
English Channel
norway
north atlantic
the sea
seafood2aweek- 95% of the cod we eat in the UK comes from the Barents Sea which is in between Norway and Russia. Cod from this region has been approved by the WWF and is currently going through MSC certification
off a fishermans boat?...!!!
from ur local chippy!!!
Atlantic
Northern Atlantic
from Bridlington best chippie in the harbour
why has the region been approved by the world wrestling federation? (WWF)
From the Church….. A born again Cod
By comparison, there is almost no response from the fans when seafood2aweek post a serious issue. The latest, a head to head comment by Andrew Jackson of IFFO and Willie MacKenzie of Greenpeace about the production of fishmeal did not provoke one single comment, however flippant.
According to SeaFish, a recent poll found that 53% of respondents were unaware that a diet rich in seafood reduced the chances of suffering a heart attack. Given the past effort to impart the two-a-week message, this is not a particularly high awareness. It is therefore not surprising that SeaFish should look for new ways to get the message across. The new media would seem the ideal opportunity to try to broaden the target audience. The problem is that by the time that organisations such as SeaFish recognise the opportunity, it has already become a missed opportunity because it is already out of fashion. Certainly, most of people we know who once used Facebook, now no longer do so. In this case, SeaFish may well have missed the boat.
However, what is of interest is that having deserted Facebook, many users have not moved to the next big thing which in this case is Twitter. This is possibly because its networking doesn’t offer the same opportunities as other sites. Whatever the reason, commercial interests have already jumped onto the bandwagon and are now using twitter in an attempt to pass on their message. For the uninitiated, twitter is a way of messaging, but messages are limited to 140 characters in length and are considered as a form of microblogging. Companies that use twitter as part of their marketing strategy have found that they have an audience that talks back, often, as the Chicago Tribune points out, with brutal candour.
What has attracted companies to twitter are users that have attracted more than a million followers. The Tribune highlights the example of ‘Sockington’ a cat that muses about litter trays and salmon. However, most of the tweeters that have gathered a large audience are the well-known celebrities who already have a strong fan base. Whether this sort of following can be emulated by commercial companies is unclear although as the Tribune highlighted, the airline JetBlue were bombarded as news of their low cost monthly pass promotion circulated around twitter. However a money saving promotion is a very different proposition to a message encouraging the consumption of more seafood.
As a result of their promotion JetBlue has amassed a following of over 1.2 million. We have looked at some of the seafood tweeters to see how they compare. Salmon of the Americas has 100 followers. The Norwegian Seafood Export Council has 540 following their Norwegian tweets and a further nine following those from the US. Seafood2aweek has 94 followers and the Fish & Chip shop of the year competition has 40. Clearly, there is a long way to go.
For the record, we at Callander McDowell have amassed a total of 2 followers (although we don’t intend to tweet and set up the account only so we could take a look at the twitter site).
New media has received a great deal of publicity but doesn’t really seem to live up to expectation when it comes to pushing a serious message. Perhaps this is because the various sites were never intended as a vehicle for commercial interests. If the seafood industry wants to find more effective ways of pushing its message home then perhaps it needs a further rethink on its future approach rather than just jumping on the latest fashionable medium.
Dirty Little Secret: We previously mentioned the head to head posted on Facebook by seafood2aweek between Andrew Jackson of IFFO and Willie MacKenzie of Greenpeace about fishmeal. Mr MacKenzie says that fish feed is one of the dirty secrets of the seafood sector. He argues that many supermarkets claim green credentials for the wild fish they sell but the other farmed half is rarely mentioned. He adds that few retailers set sustainability standards for fish feed and that they cannot expect this secret to stay safe for much longer.
We, at Callander McDowell would ask what secret?. Aquaculture feeds are not a hidden secret. It is common knowledge that fishmeal is used in fish feeds. It was even highlighted in the film the ‘End of the Line’ which received untold publicity as did Charles Clovers book of the same name.
Equally, most supermarkets do not hide the green credentials of their farmed fish. Most packs carry the message that the fish has been ‘farmed responsibly’. Further details can be found on each of the stores’ websites.
Sainsbury’s state
Where the fish-feed comes from is also important: depleting stocks of other endangered species, such as eel and blue whiting, to feed farmed fish is in no way sustainable. By working with the farmers and feed producers, we believe these concerns can be overcome and we have been working closely with our suppliers to ensure that farming practices are safe and sustainable.
We would suspect that Mr MacKenzie has seen this claim, because it appears on the website just below a quote that comes from Mr MacKenzie himself although about tinned tuna
M&S state
We will control the feed for farmed fish ensuring they meet our robust standards for sustainable sourcing.
We have worked hard towards sustainable sourcing as recognised by Greenpeace and the Marine Conservation Society in their survey of fish retailers voting us top of the league every time they have been published.
Waitrose state
Uniquely, Waitrose does not buy any farmed seafood on the open market. Long-term working partnerships have been established between Waitrose and the farmers who supply the retailer. This allows for long-term planning and early adoption of practices that lead to improved quality and sustainability of the farming operation.
Waitrose has raised the standard of fish farming through the introduction of our Select Farm schemes focusing on high standards of animal welfare and health whilst minimising impact on the environment and delicate marine ecosystems
The Coop state
Most farmed fish species are carnivorous and require the nutritional characteristics of a diet typified by oceanic feed species such as shrimps, prawns and small marine fish such as herring. The Co-operative group support the use of wild captured fish materials in formulated fish feed, providing that adequate consideration can be proven for the following governing factors:-
* That all wild captured species are taken by responsible fishers from well managed resources
* That species which are considered to be over-exploited or endangered
are excluded from formulations
* That all reasonable precautions are taken to ensure the efficient feeding of stock in order to avoid over feeding and wasted feed products
* That vegetable protein and lipid materials of non GMO origin are incorporated
into the formulation at levels which do not compromise animal welfare or the nutritional profile of the edible fish
* That the supplier is mindful of developments in feed technology and the identification of alternative proteins and lipids which may further reduce the utilisation of wild marine materials without detriment to animal welfare, product safety, product quality and nutritional profile
Morrisons state
We stock over 50 different species of fresh fish and they’re all 100% sustainable. And now all our fresh and smoked Scottish salmon is RSPCA Freedom Food accredited.
Tesco cites the example
Raising the welfare standards in Vietnam
In 2008, we introduced our white fish code of practice to fish farmers in Vietnam.
Tesco representatives travelled to Vietnam to meet with farmers of the Pangasius (Vietnamese river cobbler) fish and agree a commitment to higher fish welfare standards. Since then, we have held on-site welfare training for all farm employees responsible for the fish’s welfare. We also designed and trialled a bespoke stunner for the Pangasius. The results look positive and we hope to approve this method in early 2009. These methods have been independently verified by the Fish Vet Group.
These steps mark progress for animal welfare in Vietnam and for our partnership with Vietnamese Pangasius farmers. This is a great example of our commitment to building long-term supplier relationships that emphasise good welfare practices.
Asda’s website states
Asda doesn’t mention farmed fish specifically on its website but states that to meet their target of selling only 100% sustainably sourced fish by 2010, they have taken threatened species off their fresh fish counters, and replaced them with more sustainable options.
Mr MacKenzie thinks that feeding fish to fish is something that the industry keeps hidden but fishmeal is not unique to aquaculture and has been used for many years, without comment from organisations like Greenpeace, in terrestrial farming. Consumers have been happy to buy pork and chicken fed feeds containing fishmeal without any fuss or distaste. Fish feed on fish in the wild and as farming is just an extension of what happens in the wild, there is no reason to consider it abhorrent. In fact, it is likely that consumers would be more horrified if fish were fed on feeds that might be considered unnatural to fish.
Mr MacKenzie also riles against rearing carnivorous fish which he describes as ‘fish laundering’. This is the conversion of a gastronomically unattractive fish into something that better fits consumer tastes. Mr MacKenzie believes that we should be eating the fish used in fishmeal, a view also argued by Charles Clover. If Mr MacKenzie doesn’t want to eat farmed salmon then that is his choice but there is also the view that farming carnivorous fish is much more sustainable than harvesting the ocean’s stocks of fish that consumer’s don’t want to eat.
It seems that if there is any laundering going on it is not that of fish but Mr MacKenzie’s attempt to present a blinkered vision of aquaculture feeds. If anyone has a dirty little secret that needs to be cleaned up it is Mr MacKenzie who seems to be unwilling to face up to the reality of what consumers want.