reLAKSation 88.
Convenient road to health! The cabbage has become the latest casualty in the war to improve Britain’s national diet. According to the Independent newspaper, the first results from the British Government’s new expenditure and food survey (EFS) provide damming evidence for the continued failure to improve the nation’s diet. Despite a high profile campaign aimed at encouraging the public to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, household consumption of fresh green vegetables has declined by 7%. Traditional green and root vegetables, once integral to Sunday lunch, have made way for boil-in-the-bag alternatives and three-minutes-in-the-microwave food.
Whilst fruit and vegetable consumption has declined, consumption of ‘meat products’ has risen by three per cent because of the surge of convenience and ready meals. This has contributed to a decline in the health of the British population. This poor diet is cited as one of the reasons, together with a lack of exercise, why the rate of obesity is rising faster than anywhere in Western Europe. Professor Tom Sanders of Kings College said that it is not enough to throw money at this problem, but rather to look for reasons why the Government’s policies are not working.
However, the reasons are not hard to find. The Independent sums up the situation as follows: “ No time for Breakfast? Get a bacon butty at the station. What about lunch? – a sandwich at the desk. Dinner? Sorry working late, a microwave meal in front of the television will do – Again.” The reality is that lifestyles have changed. The family no longer sits down together to eat a full cooked meal. Instead, they eat on the hoof and this is why convenience and ready meals have become so popular with consumers.
If the Government wants the public to eat healthier food then it needs to encourage the consumption of such food in the form that consumers want to eat. After-all, there is no reason why convenience and ready meal should not also offer healthy eating. In our modern society, consumers expect supermarkets to offer special promotions on the food they buy. There is no reason why convenience foods cannot be offered in conjunction with fresh fruit or vegetables to help improve the overall nutrition. For example, buy a meal, get an apple free.
Whilst this latest survey clearly has implications for fruit and vegetable growers, does it have any relevance to the fisheries sector? The answer is clearly yes. This is because the EFS survey also found that consumption of fresh fish had declined by 4%. This is despite a mass of evidence indicating that the fats in oily fish help maintain the heart and circulation. Another study showed that those who regularly ate fish were given added protection against several types of cancer. Fish is clearly good for the health and yet consumption is down. The British public are simply not responding to the healthy eating message. As Professor Sanders suggests, the solution may not be to just throw money at further campaigns but instead use a more indirect approach. The answer must be to use much more healthy ingredients in the type of convenience products and ready meals that consumers clearly prefer to eat. Salmon features in many added value products in the UK market, but most of these are aimed at the luxurious target market. Yet, there is no reason why fish based convenience foods cannot be aimed at the healthy eating market. Most supermarkets have large ranges of healthy eating foods, but few include fish and even less salmon. If the fish farming industry wants to promote its produce as healthy, the Governments findings show that it is not enough to say so. They must also lead the way.
Dumping the Dumpers: Intrafish reports that George Weston owned Heritage Salmon is to buy Maine based LR Enterprises. This sale should herald the end of the anti-dumping order against Chile since LR were the sole petitioner in the US anti-dumping case against Chilean salmon imports. Although the purchase was motivated by the fact that LR Enterprises were in debt to Heritage, the sale has the added benefit that it will bring to an end the accusations of dumping. Hopefully, this will bring a complete close to this sad chapter of aquaculture development. This is because the EU have also shown a reticence to progress any further dumping actions against salmon exporters.
It is quite understandable that some smaller independent salmon farming companies might feel aggrieved by the appearance of imported salmon into their home markets, especially at a time when prices were in a downward spiral, however dumping actions were never the solution. Salmon prices have fallen because production has risen in response to increasing consumer demand. This growth in production has had a dramatic effect on salmon’s market image and this is something that dumping actions would never resolve. Instead, the industry needs marketing solutions to counter increased production and lower prices, not those solutions aimed at restricting international trade.
It has previously been suggested that trade actions are simply an excuse for poor marketing. Now that trade actions have hopefully been curtailed, the international industry has now a major opportunity to focus on improved marketing, producing the type of products that consumers now want and to do so profitably.
Dead & Buried?: Shake yourselves up or prepare for the death of your industry. According to Fishupdate.com, this was the stark message given recently by Andrew Cookson of GIRA to leaders of Europe’s trout farming industry. Mr Cookson told the meeting that the trout sector was suffering from severe stagnation and that time was running out to find a solution.
He said that ‘consumers perceive sea bream as a young product, salmon as a mature product whilst trout is seen as a ‘frumpy’ old aunt of the fish farming sector. He said that this an image which is not going to keep the industry in business.
However, we at Callander McDowell, are not convinced by this assessment of the trout market since our observations suggest that it may be a little more vibrant than Mr Cookson suggests. The problem is that preset ideas of the marketplace can cloud any forthcoming judgements. For example, it is unlikely that most consumers would perceive whether trout is a young, mature or old product unless prompted by a specific question to do so. More likely that salmon and trout are more established products, whilst sea bream and more importantly, sea bass are relatively new aquaculture products, but does this make any difference to consumer purchase?
Consumers have a choice when buying fish. They could buy sea bream or equally, they could buy trout. However, consumers also have a wide range of other fish species to choose from which are wild caught. Some of these fish have been a staple part of the human diet for generations and therefore could be considered to be old products, yet they remain popular. The question of whether trout is an old established product is clearly not the reason why the trout industry may be experiencing problems as Mr Cookson suggests.
In fact, Mr Cookson appears to contradict himself as he is quoted as saying that ‘ In short, the problem you have is not the product, it’s the producers.’ This is because of the highly fragmented production base, which he said must be created into a more unified industry structure. Sadly, Mr Cookson, who has previously undertaken work for the salmon industry has not yet appreciated the differences between salmon and trout production.
Unlike their salmon farming counterparts, trout farmers are limited by the availability of plenty of clean freshwater. This means that trout farms tend to be small production units which are owner operated as compared with the international businesses which run large salmon farms. This constraints on trout production mean that the total volume produced has now reached its maximum giving the impression that the trout industry is now stagnating, but this is not necessarily the case.
Whilst the bulk of the trout industry does consist of small production units, several farmers have recognised that they are simply not large enough to supply the supermarket chains. To access this market, farmers have joined together to form their own marketing co-operatives, one of which Scot Trout, has been cited by the Government as an example to all forms of agriculture as a model of co-operative venture. In fact, those smaller salmon farmers, who complain about unfair competition from overseas, could well look to this form of venture as a better way of competing against imports. The trout farming co-ops have already made a significant impact on the way trout is supplied to the marketplace so that the industry is not as fragmented as Mr Cookson would suggest.
Mr Cookson also said that the industry needs to introduce new products particularly focusing on the convenience market, yet it already does so.
We also referred to another example of such development in reLAKSation no 75 last January. In addition, he suggests that greater product differentiation than exists at present is required, but this is also happening with the introduction of Loch Trout fillets as distinct from the usual rainbow trout fillets.
These, and other, developments illustrate how dynamic the trout sector really is. The trout industry is not stagnating but responding to the needs of the marketplace. It is true that this was not always the case. In fact the greatest problem experienced by the trout industry was the production of portion sized whole fish. These were presented not just in stores but also in restaurants as whole fish, complete with the head and tail. Research has shown that many potential fish consumers are deterred by a meal which actually looks like a fish and the trout industry were slow to accept this view. This is now changing with whole trout accounting for only a small part of the range of trout products available in supermarkets. Along with fillets, supermarkets are now selling headless trout and the larger loch trout fillets. There are also smoked trout products including those that have been further processed. Smoked trout and horseradish mousse is just one example.
The final suggestion made by Mr Cookson is that the trout industry needs to decouple itself from salmon production. Certainly, to many consumers a fillet of salmon looks similar to a fillet of loch trout and this may lead to some confusion, however, the range of alternative products is such that trout are distinct from salmon. It is easy to forget that a fillet of cod looks very similar to one of haddock, but consumers continue to buy both.
The trout industry does need to take a more aggressive approach to marketing, but this applies equally to all sections of the fish farming industry. However, unlike other sections of the fish farming industry, trout farmers have recognised this need and have responded. Any announcements of the death of the industry are certainly very premature.