reLAKSation
47.
Snails pace?:
The new fish labelling legislation continues to be under the microscope. The new
IntraFish newspaper reports that many French retailers, both independent and
giants alike, have still not managed to comply with the new legislation. This is
not in the least bit surprising, since as the paper suggests many retailers are
still trying to find the best way to present the information to their customers,
especially on the fresh fish counter.
However, whilst many stores have
yet to respond to the challenge of labelling loose fresh fish, new labels have
started to appear on some pre-packed chilled fish. This is happening mainly on
packs of fish where supplies are most predictable, for example farmed salmon.
Examples of such labels from the UK market include the following:
FARMED IN SCOTLAND
FARM REARED IN SCOTTISH WATERS
FARMED IN NORWAY
FARMED IN CHILE
Certainly in the UK market,
farmed salmon is increasingly being labelled with the correct information. This
is not yet widespread because some retailers have said that they are using up
old labels first, especially whilst they wait for the relevant statutory
instruments to be implemented by the UK government.
However, the real question is
whilst consumers have a right to all possible information about the food they
buy, are they that interested in what the label actually says?
The Food Standards Agency in
Scotland released the results of the latest Scottish Consumer Omnibus when they
exhibited at the Fishing and Aquaculture exhibitions in Glasgow. This market
research asked 1001 consumers, which factors most influenced their purchase of
fish. Not surprisingly, the most important factor was the appearance of the fish
or pack. If this were not attractive the consumer would not even bother to
consider buying it.
The second most important factor
was taste, although presumably this refers to fish products to which consumers
have some familiarity and therefore is only relevant to repeat purchases.
After taste, consumers are most
influenced by price, which is not unexpected. Certainly, the low price of salmon
has stimulated sales and therefore must be a major driver of consumer choice.
Appearance, taste and price all
figure highly in this survey and all have produced percentages in double
figures. By comparison, all the other factors hardly figure in the results.
These can be summarised as follows:
Information on labels – 2%
Production methods –2%
Wild or farmed fish? –2%
Environmental concerns – less
than 1%
Country of origin – less than
1%.
This confirms in part earlier
research by the International Salmon Farmers Association who found that country
of origin was of little importance to consumers. Back in early 2000, the
Scottish industry’s representative organisation implied that many UK
supermarkets were misleading their customers by not identifying the country of
origin. It will now be interesting to see whether this new labelling changes
consumer opinion and they opt to select the salmon they buy on the additional
information now provided on these labels.
Breathing space:
The news that the European Commission has promised Norwegian salmon farmers that
no measures would be taken to change their current market access will not have
pleased everyone working in the international salmon industry. However, it was
clearly the right decision. According to IntraFish, further investigations now
mean that it is unlikely that there will be a new salmon agreement before next
year.
We, at Callander McDowell, would
hope that the European Commission finally realise that such further
investigations are a total waste of time and that as we have repeatedly
suggested, the European Salmon Agreement should now be allowed to run its course
and then elapse for good.
The salmon agreement is simply
an artefact of the old production-led strategies and in much the same way that
the industry must move away from these production-led strategies to those, which
are market-led, then it also must leave the salmon agreement and the associated
dumping allegations behind. It is time to move on
The salmon agreement was imposed at a time when there was still some focus on country of origin. As we have already seen, country of origin is now of little importance to consumers. The changing ownership of farms means that the distinction between where and by whom, salmon is produced has become increasingly blurred. Less than 10% of European salmon is actually Scottish or Irish owned. It is increasingly clear than in terms of production and the market, salmon is salmon is salmon.
When consumers buy salmon, their
decision is not whether they buy Scottish or Irish or Norwegian fish, but rather
should they buy salmon or some other fish or even chicken, meat or pizza. The
focus must now be on the market, not on what happens in Brussels.
Multiple streaming:
Celebrity chef, Nick Nairn, who was extremely entertaining when he gave
his cookery demonstrations on the EWOS stand at the Glasgow Aquaculture
Exhibition, told fishupdate.com that there was a danger that attempts to keep up
with the volumes of salmon produced by Norway and Chile could be the death knell
to the Scottish industry. He suggests that some large-scale producers focus too
much on volume rather than the quality. He sees this as being a threat to what
should be a leading Scottish food product.
However, at the same time, he
suggests the industry needs to get a cheaper product into schools, canteens and
hospitals in order to persuade more people to eat more fish. He says that it
should be a major part of Scotland’s diet.
Yet, the budget for meals in
schools, hospitals and canteens is often measured in pence rather than pounds.
If salmon is be produced at a cost to meet this sort of budget, then the focus
must be on the low cost production, which Mr Nairn would like to reject.
Many of the past problems
experienced by the salmon industry have arisen because some producers believe
Scotland can only be a producer of premium quality salmon and nothing else. The
reality is that, whether produced in Scotland or anywhere else, salmon can be
whatever the market wants it to be.