reLAKSation 459
Shrinking salmon: The price of salmon sold by British retailers has noticeably increased over the past few weeks. These price rises have now been followed by a sudden increase in promotional activity. Almost every retailer now has salmon on one form of promotion or another. These range from straight discounts to multi-buy or special purchase. Salmon fillet is now available for typically around £11-£13/kg depending on the actual presentation. Clearly, the higher prices have placed a brake on sales which these various offers are expected to reverse.
Whilst stores have used a variety of promotional tools to make salmon more affordable to consumers, they have also used different methods to raise the price. Whilst direct price increases are the most obvious, the retailers have also varied the presentation to make consumers believe that salmon remains inexpensive.
One way this has been achieved is to change the salmon from skinless to skin on. Removing the skin involves a cost which can be saved by changing the product to just boneless rather than skinless and boneless. This change is not so obvious to consumers in store since the fillets are displayed skin down and thus the salmon remains unchanged.
The second approach has been to reduce the size of the fillets. The Food Standards Agency states that one portion of salmon (as in the recommendation to eat two portions of fish a week) is about 140g. One retailer is still offering 150g fillets in prepack but others have reduced the weight considerably. The smallest weight is now 110g with portions of 120g, 133g and 140g as well. Reducing the size of the fillets means that the stores can keep the same price point and thus convince the consumer that their salmon still costs the same. However, if prices should continue to rise, how small can salmon fillets be made before consumers begin to think that they are too small to buy?
Royal declaration: The UK’s Prince Charles recently addressed the first ever Global Summit of The Consumer Goods Forum in London. According to fishupdate.com, he told senior executives of some of the world’s top manufacturers and retailers that they should use their influence to change the way that the global fishing industry is managed. He praised as courageous retailers such as WalMart for insisting that fish suppliers must be certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.
Whilst the MSC will undoubtedly argue the process to certify fisheries as sustainable is not yet perfect and that their certification scheme is better than no scheme at all, there is a worrying trend of fisheries being granted certification despite major objections from local environmentalists. The latest case is the certification of some sockeye salmon fisheries in British Columbia in Canada by certifiers Moody Marine. The certification comes with some conditions but the imposition of any conditions suggests that the fishery may not be that sustainable at all.
There seems to be increasing pressure to certify fisheries as more and more companies commit to so called sustainable policies. The MSC claim that the certification process is fully independent but as we have pointed out in a previous comment, it does seem to be dominated by commercial interests to the extent that perhaps it should now be called the MMSC.
Well done Nico part 2: Last week, we discussed how Nico Simeone of Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel had won the Scottish Young Seafood Chef competition that form part of the attempt by the Scottish Government to eat more fish. We suggested that with finalists from hotels and restaurants like the Balmoral, the Seafood Restaurant at St Andrew’s and the Turnberry Hotel that perhaps the competition was targeting the top end of the marketplace and would do little to convince the ordinary public to begin eating fish.
The people at Seafood Scotland, who organised the competition, were not impressed by our comments and contacted us to say that they undertake a much wider programme to promote seafood consumption in Scotland, which we hadn’t discussed. However we only made comment on what was said on their press release.
By coincidence, this week we read about the results of another cookery competition but this one was organised by Tesco for young cooks aged between 11 and 16. Although not specifically aimed at cooking seafood, three of the eight finalists cooked seafood dishes for celebrity chef Jean Christophe Novelli, who was the main judge. The three seafood dishes were Thyme infused sea bass with a leek and potato stack and buttered green beans; Salmon with crab mash and a tomato sauce and the third dish was Honey garlic prawns wrapped in a chive pancake with sautéed potatoes and a pea and mint puree. Sadly, the winner was not one of these three contestants although Ryan, aged 14, who was the eventual winner, made a hot and cold salmon sandwich with a chunky beetroot mayonnaise for the second part of the cooking challenge. A video of the competition can be found on the Tesco website at http://www.tesco.com/todayattesco/cookbook/young_cook_of_the_year.shtml
How much more exciting is a cooking competition for children than one for professional chefs. If we are to encourage the next generation to learn about cooking and eating fish, isn’t it better to involve them directly than focus attention on professional chefs and hope that the experience might eventually filter down to the younger consumers.
Young consumers were also targeted at the cookery competition held during the Dorset Seafood Festival which took place in Weymouth this weekend. Last year, this event attracted over 50,000 people and unlike the Edinburgh Taste Festival in which Seafood Scotland participated, there was no admission charge so it was open to all. This year, even more people are expected. A video of the event from last year can be found at http://www.dorsetseafood.co.uk/media/2009video/
The Festival was designed to be a family event along with tastings and demonstrations. Clearly, if eating fish and seafood can be associated with a fun day out, then it can become an experience that young people will want to repeat.
This contrasts with the Scottish Government’s strategy to encourage Scots to eat more fish which include the seafood chef competition, a web portal to give consumers a single source of advice and promotions at public events such as Taste Edinburgh and the Glasgow Good Food Show, which charge an entry fee.
It is easier to increase fish consumption by encouraging those who are interested in food and already eat fish to eat more. It’s a much harder task to encourage those who never or rarely eat fish to start doing so. The Scottish seafood cookery competition winner Nico may be a wonderful chef but it’s unlikely that his reach will spread far from the kitchens of the Balmoral Hotel.