reLAKSation 433
Christmas offers: As we enter a new decade, we continue our tradition of reporting the Christmas salmon promotions offered by UK retailers. This year, as in previous years, the main offering is half price or better than half price, whole salmon.
Asda Whole salmon £3.40/kg saving £3.58/kg
Booths Whole salmon £6.00/kg saving £1.00/kg
Salmon fillets £10.00/kg saving £3.00/kg
Morrison’s Whole salmon £5.79/kg (standard price)
Sainsbury’s Whole salmon £4.40/kg saving £4.50/kg
Salmon fillet £6.30/kg half price
Tesco Whole salmon £3.49/kg half price
Salmon side £7.91/kg saving £4.08/kg
Waitrose Whole salmon £4.49/kg half price
Better than cure: Seafood International suggests that in the same way that the ISA virus brought Chile’s salmon farming industry to its knees, sea lice may cripple Norway’s salmon industry. This comes after the Norwegian Food Safety Authority warned that sea lice numbers have increased in farm cages and resistance against the most commonly used lice treatments has escalated. Figures from September indicate that the lice level was three times that of the previous year. Ole Fjetland of the MFSA said that sea lice possibly represent the biggest threat to sustainable salmon farming in Norway.
For the past couple of months, news stories about sea lice have dominated the pages of all of the web news services as Norway begins its biggest ever coordinated effort to reduce the number of sea lice. Henrik Stenwig, Director for Health at the Norwegian Seafood Federation told IntraFish that it is estimated that this will cost over NOK 1 billion during 2010. At worst, fish may have to be slaughtered and sites left fallow to break the cycle.
Due to the loss of efficacy of some treatments with increased resistance, the farming industry is looking again at hydrogen peroxide and the use of wrasse. However, like the current treatments, none of these offers a single answer to sea lice control. Instead, an integrated approach is a more likely solution using a variety of different treatments in rotation so that resistance is kept to a minimum.
Yet, there may be other ways to minimise infestation by sea lice. In their interview with Mr Stenwig, IntraFish use words such as ‘combat’ and ‘battle’ implying a continuous war to remove sea lice from the fish. We, at Callander McDowell, wonder whether more effort should be made to prevent sea lice infection from the outset rather than battle to remove them once they are present.
Marine Harvest has already changed its policy on transporting live fish for harvesting, opting to slaughter on site so remove any risk of transporting sea lice from one site to another, but this is only part of the process to reduce overall infection levels.
A more universal approach that could minimise infection for all fish throughout the whole growing cycle is to consider the behaviour of the fish and the lice in an attempt to ensure that they don’t actually meet.
It is well known that the infectious stages of sea lice are attracted to light and can be found to congregate in the surface layers of the sea. This is in no doubt to increase the chances of finding a host fish. At the same time, farmed salmon are also encouraged to swim in the same surface layers due to the way that feed is administered, ensuring that the fish not only receive their feed but the sea lice larvae find a ready host. It’s almost akin to a silver service restaurant for both fish and sea lice.
Current feeding practice has developed from the simplest methods of administration when the farmer threw scoopfuls of feed into the cage. Feed entered the water where it becomes accessible to the fish, passing down through the water column and out through the bottom of the cage to waste. Although the industry has moved on from manual feeding, the feed still passes through the surface layers attracting the fish where they become instant targets for sea lice larvae.
A simple change in feeding practice could impose a change in fish behaviour so that the interaction between fish and sea lice larvae is cut. If fish could be encouraged to feed lower in the cages, away from the surface layers, then the risk of infestation would be much reduced. However, pumping feed down to lower in the cage may not be the solution as the time the feed is available to the fish will be reduced as well as increasing the wastage as more feed will be uneaten and subsequently is lost as it passes out of the cage bottom.
The solution would be to consider reversing current technology. Instead of feeding a sinking feed from the top of the cage, a buoyant feed could be fed from the bottom of the cage. The fish would be attracted downwards to the feed source away from the surface layers. Feed would then rise through the water column becoming accessible to the less dominant fish and finally float to the surface where it would become a visual indicator to stop feeding.
One of the objections to this system is that the fish would not be so easily seen and monitored by the farmer. However, reverse feeding actually provides an instant indication if something is wrong with the fish for if feed should immediately appear at the surface it would show that the fish are not feeding and that something could be wrong.
Clearly, reverse feeding doesn’t stop all interaction between sea lice larvae and salmon but by keeping most of the fish apart, infection rates should be kept to a minimum. Reverse feeding may not be a total solution to sea lice but as part of an integrated approach, it could help keep infection to a minimum.
This weekend’s Guardian newspaper magazine contains a comment from respected food writer Matthew Fort that amongst other things farmed salmon are routinely dosed with chemicals and that consumers should consider wild Alaskan salmon as an alternative. Whilst it is important that the battle against sea lice should be won, it should not affect the reputation of farmed salmon. It is too easy to forget that this is not just a battle against sea lice but that it is part of the process of providing consumers with a healthy and nutritious food.
Eat local: Just before Christmas, the Scottish Executive’s Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead issued a press release as a new survey revealed that more Scots are turning to local food. Mr Lochhead said that:
‘It’s fantastic that so many Scots are recognising the value and importance of eating local, seasonal produce. There is a growing appetite for Scottish produce at home and abroad – the number of shoppers buying locally produced food has almost doubled in just three years.’
Whilst Mr Lochhead should be applauded for overseeing an increase in demand for locally produced food in Scotland, we are puzzled as to what this has to do with demand from abroad. Surely the whole point of local food is that it is grown and consumed locally. Mr Lochhead seems keen to increase local demand for locally produced food, welcoming the news that 60% of Scots will have eaten local seasonal produce this Christmas, a figure that rises to 75% in the Highlands and Islands.
The inference is that if Scots eat locally produced food then this boosts demand from local producers and hence reduced demand from more distant and overseas producers. Yet, if he is trying to encourage local consumption then how can he justify sending Scottish produce overseas where it will be anything but local. Surely, consumers in these export markets should also be encouraged to eat local too?
The problem is that much of our food is not produced locally and thus the move to promote local consumption is somewhat misplaced. Of course it makes sense that mass market produce such as carrots and potatoes be sold locally rather than shipped to some distant depot and then distributed into areas where carrots and potatoes are also grown. But some produce can never be grown locally. For example, we are unaware of any local vineyards in Scotland, yet at the same time, whisky is widely not produced outside Scotland.
The fundamental problem is that ‘local’ has not been really been defined. It could be within a couple of miles; twenty or thirty miles (as dictated by some farmers markets), or even regional. Mr Lochhead, with his reference to Scottish produce, even seems to suggest that local is actually national.
Of course, as can be seen by his comments, Mr Lochhead would like to see increases in both local and overseas consumption. It’s about getting the balance right. For example, it seems ludicrous that some retailers in Scotland stock Norwegian salmon (although Norwegian producers are probably quite pleased). One reason why this happens is that the emphasis on exports has meant that there can be a shortfall in salmon availability in the UK. In 2008, the Scottish salmon industry exported 40% of its production, yet growing demand in the UK meant that importing salmon from elsewhere was essential. Before anyone rushes to tell us that the presence of Norwegian salmon in Scottish supermarkets is just another example of Norway undercutting local producers and offering cheaper salmon which the market has been unable to resist, we would recount our recent observations in the French market.
One of the most noticeable changes in recent months has been the growing appearance of organic salmon from both Scotland and Ireland in the French retail sector. We don’t think that the volumes are huge but the presence is sufficiently noticeable that it has an effect on the wider marketplace. The increased supply of organic salmon to France has meant that there is a shortfall in the UK market, which has been filled by organic salmon from Norway. Some of the leading high-end suppliers are now offering Norwegian fish simply because they cannot source fish locally. This has nothing to do with price.
Of course this is nothing new. In a review of the salmon sector last year, SeaFish reported that in 2006, Scotland exported 51,000 tonnes of salmon yet at the same time the UK imported 64,900 tonnes. We suspect that almost half of these imports were canned and frozen Alaskan salmon however the balance still represents a significant volume of Atlantic salmon consumed in the UK that is not locally produced but could have been.