reLAKSation 438
Money talks: Our comments about Target’s decision to ban farmed salmon from its stores appear to have been right on target as we have never before had such a massive response to an issue of reLAKSation.
Of course, in this instance, Target stores can afford to put themselves on the sustainability pedestal since their salmon offerings are extremely limited and it will be of little consequence to them whether they sell farmed salmon or not. They cannot be seen as the archetypal US retailer of farmed salmon but their decision will nevertheless boost the ammunition of the anti-farmed salmon lobby.
In response to Target’s decision, Jørgen Christiansen of Marine Harvest says that this proves the need for sustainability certification covering farmed fish. He told IntraFish that farmed fish need to be certified in the same way as wild fish. That is why Marine Harvest has been working with the ‘so-called salmon dialogue’ organised by the WWF as a prelude to certification.
We, at Callander McDowell, are not so sure. We don’t believe that it can be so simple and that there is still too much of a hidden agenda. However we will come to that later.
What is clear is that certification doesn’t guarantee anything and especially a place on the retailer’s shelves. This is apparent from the experience of ‘No Catch’ organic cod which having obtained organic certification, then found that the certification wasn’t accepted by the retailers who sold most organic produce. In the UK there are thirteen different certification bodies all with different critera for deciding what is organic and what is not.
Whilst the most highly promoted sustainability scheme for wild fish is the Marine Stewardship Council, they are not the only one. There are a number of other certification bodies willing to certify fisheries as sustainable, although according to Accenture Development Partnerships, not all are as thorough as the MSC. However as they were commissioned by the WWF to evaluate the various labels, their findings are not unexpected given the relationship between the MSC and the WWF.
Aquaculture will not be any different. There are currently three different schemes and these are to be discussed at the Seafood Summit held this week in Paris. The programme states that ‘it has become increasingly confusing what each is trying to achieve and how their work will result in change on the ground’. The Summit hopes to conclude whether one winner will emerge from the standards battle.
Whilst there are already differences between the various schemes, the gap between them is likely to widen even further. This is because certification is not indefinite and usually runs for a fixed time before reassessment is required. During this time, the goal posts of what is sustainable and what is not can be, and is likely to be, moved. In a WWF presentation on ‘You Tube’ promoting the standards for tilapia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnq2JvEifsg )(eventually leading to Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification) Jack Morales of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership says that ‘the standard recognises that sustainability is a process promoting innovation and continuous improvement.’
The question is where is this innovation and continuous improvement going to take the salmon farming industry? So far most of the standards have focused on species such as tilapia, catfish and shrimp rather than salmon. We suspect that this is because unlike these species, salmon is such a contentious issue, mainly because of the interaction with wild stocks. However, the absence of standards doesn’t mean that the end point is not clear.
This month Scientific American reported that Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch gave a green ‘Best Choice’ rating to Coho salmon farmed in a closed containment system located in Rochester, Washington.
The message to the salmon farming industry is clear. Move to close containment and your fish will be given the sustainability seal of approval but stick with existing practices then it is likely that supermarkets will increasingly refuse to stock your salmon.
With the tilapia standards covering such areas as water testing, energy use and worker equality, how can we be so certain that future certification will be used to force the salmon industry towards close containment?
As we discussed in our comment about Target stores, there is an underlying campaign to discredit farmed salmon in the marketplace, which has been termed ‘demarketing’ (http://fairquestions.typepad.com/fishfarmfuss/ ). In her blog, Fish Farm Fuss, Vivian Krause highlights the huge amount of funding being pumped into organisations that work against the salmon farming industry.
The central focus for this funding is the David & Lucille Packard Foundation and its director Julie Packard, vice chairman of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The Aquarium has received the bulk of the funding with $372 million since 2000 from the Packard Foundation but other funding includes $33 million from 2000 to 2008 of which about $5 million has been used to specifically set up the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and fund the Aquaculture Dialogues that are to be used as the basis for certification.
Once the salmon industry enters the certification process then it will be a much simpler job for the anti-farming lobby to manipulate both the industry and the certification process to meet their demands. Certainly, it will be much easier than battling against the industry that has not committed to certification.
The reality is that farmed fish do not need to be certified at all. The whole point about sustainability is that wild fish stocks are inherently difficult to manage. No-one knows for certain how many fish are in the sea and if they are caught in large numbers, how they will impact on the whole stock. Farming, by its very nature is an exact science. If the market wants a thousand tonnes of salmon then production can be geared up to produce that exact amount. It is therefore always a sustainable process.
The push for certification is that the environmental lobby blame farming for a whole range of ills. Through certification, this lobby believes that they can manipulate the farming industry to farm in the way that they want, whether it is the right way or not. The environmental lobby have managed to get their way so far simply because of the pressure that can be brought on the industry by the huge amounts of funding made available to them.
Julie Packard is currently in Paris for the Seafood Summit where she is due to make the closing remarks. Hopefully, the salmon industry, including Jørgen Christiansen, will recognise that she cannot be allowed to have the last word.
Fishing for compliments: The Norwegian Seafood Export Council has upset the Pure Salmon Campaign who according to the Norwegian regional newspaper Nordlys have run a marketing campaign in the United States that falsely depicts Norwegian farmed salmon as wild.
The advert apparently appeared in the October issue of the magazine ‘Cooking Light’. The text states:
Naturally Easy
In Norway, we don’t like to complicate things. We walk where others might drive. We prefer fishing in fjords to fishing for answers. And when we cook, we let nature do most of the work.
Norwegian salmon develops its pure flavour from years of swimming in cold clear Arctic waters. Yet it can be prepared in seconds.
Learn how at salmoninseconds.com
Pure Salmon have submitted a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission in which they claim that the advertisement is misleading and gives a false impression in that Norwegian salmon is wild and not farmed.
Nordlys reports that Christian Charmer of NSEC has said that the advertisement has been reviewed by lawyers in the US who consider that it meets advertising standards. We, at Callander McDowell, don’t doubt that it does.
The question is not whether the advertisement has or hasn’t breached advertising standards but whether NSEC has been somewhat naïve in their approach to advertising. This advertisement would probably have gone unnoticed if it had been placed in a European publication but what is acceptable about advertising farmed salmon in Europe and what is acceptable in the United States are two very different things. This is for one single reason. The United States has a significant and influential wild salmon fishing industry.
It may well be that this advertisement was drawn up by an independent advertising agency who simply do not see the implications of the wording. The ad starts with the sentence that in Norway, we don’t like to complicate things but yet, in just a couple of short paragraphs NSEC have complicated a very simple message.
The real problem is with the statement that ‘Norwegians prefer fishing in fjords’. The clear implication is that Norwegian salmon are fished out of the fjords like wild fish rather than being fished out of the pens of a salmon farm located on the edge of a fjord. This was bound to incense the wild farm lobby just like waving a red rag to a bull. The wild message was further reinforced with the claim that the salmon flavour was developed by years of swimming round in ice cold Arctic water. Farmed animals in general do not have a long life. The suggestion that the salmon have swum for years might imply a wild existence.
For those who read the advert that like us have some knowledge of the salmon farming industry, the suggestion that Norwegians walk instead of driving means that we are likely to take the advertisement with a pinch of salt i.e. that it is waxing lyrically about salmon rather than stating hard facts. Unfortunately, Pure Salmon and the environmental lobby are looking for any excuse to discredit the salmon farming industry and sadly NSEC has walked (rather than driven) straight into the trap.
NSEC’s role is to promote Norwegian fish and seafood so that is what they do by trying to create an image of Norway. This is apparent from this advert and the salmon is almost secondary. Perhaps, if they focused on the salmon instead, they would have less chance of falling foul of the Pure Salmon Campaign.
It is unclear whether the Federal Trade Commission will pursue this complaint or whether they will dismiss it out of hand so there is always the possibility that NSEC will have to defend the advert. In our view the best form of defence is attack and perhaps the time has come to expose the claims made by the wild salmon interests.
Much is made of the wild provenance of Alaskan salmon yet much of the salmon caught in Alaskan waters is not wild at all but ranched. This means that the fish are reared in a farm hatchery and then held in marine farms until they are large enough to release to forage for food as they would have done if truly wild. According to Alaska’s salmon blog (http://alaskasalmonranching.wordpress.com/ ), the Alaska Department of Fish And Game reported that in 2008, 60 million salmon out of a harvest of 146 million fish were ocean ranched. This amounts to 41% of the total catch.
Yet, the Alaskan Seafood Marketing Institute fails to make any mention of hatcheries or ranching in any of their promotional material. Instead, the message is kept simple – wild and pure.
This applies to every aspect of the salmon’s life. For example, the ASMI talk about the sustainability of their salmon saying that ‘the number of salmon harvested must be relative to the number that can be replenished naturally’. Clearly, this implies that salmon hatcheries are natural which they are not. They are farms despite the claim that no salmon farming occurs in Alaska.
Obviously, farming doesn’t mean the same thing in Alaska as it does in the rest of the world just as wild seems to have more than meaning. Is it no wonder that the environmental lobby are confused by the use of different terminology!
Welcome to the real world: IntraFish reports that Charles Redfern of the UK company Fish4Ever has told the Seafood Summit in Paris that consumers lie when asked whether they are prepared to pay more for sustainable seafood because they want to be seen to be saying the right thing. He said that market research indicates that consumers are favourable to paying a premium price for ethical and sustainable products but this intent is not reflected in sales with only about 2% of consumers actually prepared to pay more.
However, just because 2% of consumers are willing to buy into the sustainability message doesn’t mean that the other 98% are lying. The truth is that when asked, most consumers do believe that ethical and sustainable food should cost more but when faced with the reality of the extra cost in the supermarket, other factors also come into play so that choice is more likely dictated by the price.
Mr Redfern says that his tuna costs more because they try to give economic benefit back to the producer. He said that if the product is not financially viable then the producer will not buy into the idea. Currently, the cannery he uses in the Maldives is working at a dramatically reduced capacity because fishermen are selling the fish to Thailand for canning.
The problem for Mr Redfern is easy to see. The only supermarket that Fish4Ever supply is WalMart owned Asda. They sell his tuna chunks in brine for £1.62, whilst Asda’s owned label version sells for just 64p. Even branded John West tuna in Asda costs just £1.00 a can. This is a big difference to pay, especially in a store such as Asda which promotes itself on its price commitment. Currently Fish4Ever tuna is on promotion at £1.46 a can but this is still a lot more than the other choices.
Market research is only a guide to consumer attitudes not a guarantee of firm commitment. If consumers only say what they are expected to say then market research would be a waste of time. The reality is that paying 150% extra for Fish4Ever tuna requires a major commitment and it’s not the level of commitment that most consumers are willing to pay. Perhaps, if his product cost 50% more, like the branded option, then the consumer response might be much greater. It’s not consumers who are lying but Mr Redfern who is lying to himself, if he believes that mainstream consumers have a real commitment to his ideals.