eurofish magazine 3 2009

ISSN 1020-9956 June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

Measures to restore fleet profitabilty

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ESE / SPE Brussel: Good business in hard times

Auctions: The gateways to international seafood markets

Russia: New trends on the market

Salmco Technik GmbH · Hamburg · GermanyTel.: +4940713 1472 · E-Mail: [email protected] · Internet: www.salmco.com

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Tel.: +49 (40) 39 92 92-0, Fax: +49 (40) 39 92 92 39E-Mail: [email protected] - www.hafro.de

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ISSN 1020-9956

June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

Measures to restore fl eet profi tabiltySweden


Auctions: The gateways to international seafood marketsRussia: New trends on the market

Eckhard PreußMarderstieg 7, D-21717 Fredenbeck, Germany

Phone +49 (0) 41 49 / 80 20, Fax +49 (0) 41 49 / 72 92

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Phone +45 333 777 63, Fax +45 333 777 56


Ristic AGAm Espen 15, D-90559 OberferriedenTel.: 0 91 83 / 40 90, Fax: 0 91 83 / 4 09 49Web: www.ristic.com, E-Mail: [email protected]

Eurofish Magazine3/2009 3

European Seafood Exposition – Despite the financial crisis the European Seafood Exposition at Brussels has retained its position as one of the most important and international events for the seafood industry. Although the number of visitors and exhibitors was somewhat lower than last year most attendees were reassured by the fact that the figures were not worse. The fact that companies had sent fewer representatives probably meant that business was more focused and deals cut more efficiently. The issue of sustainability permeated the show again this year with a greater number of stands displaying products carrying the Marine Stewardship Council logo and a conference on the subject that was highly critical of the Common Fisheries Policy. Suggestions to reform the policy included using a more market-based approach to regulating fisheries as well as devolving fisheries matters to the individual member states and regions. The Commission’s own Green Paper on the CFP was released a few weeks ago and is also very critical. Public suggestions and opinions are being sought until the end of the year on the reform of the CFP which should lead to an overhaul of the complete system. Page 16

Sweden – The fisheries sector in Sweden is implementing measures to increase the profitability of the different segments of the marine fleet. Making the fleet more profitable will address several issues at once: a profitable fleet will draw in capital for investments that can be used to modernise vessels; if the fisheries sector can show that it has a future, it will attract a new generation of fishers to the trade bringing down the average age that has been climbing steadily over the last years; for the fleet to be profitable there should be a balance between capacity and the resource, thus a profitable fleet could contribute to making the fishery more sustainable; and in addition a profitable fleet gives a future to coastal communities that are closely linked to the sector. Using a mix of administrative measures and incentives financed by the European Fisheries Fund the Swedish authorities are hoping to turn around the slow decline of their fisheries sector. 2

Russia – The effect of the financial crisis can be felt on the market for fish and seafood in Russia, but its impact has been muted. Consumers are saving more on non-food items than on food items, and when cutting back on foods it is the delicatessen purchases that feel the pinch first. Demand has been growing for cheaper fish products such as the pelagic species, herring and mackerel, as well as Alaska pollock, salmon and rainbow trout, and falling for more expensive crustaceans, molluscs, and exotic varieties of fish. Until recently Russian traders were exporting their products to Asian and other markets directly from the catching zones. With the introduction of new legislation all fish caught now has to be customs cleared in Russia first. This has led to a decline in both exports and imports, which was partly the objective of the new legislation. With more fish becoming available on the market due to the mandatory landing of fish and the decreased exports consumption is also projected to rise in 2009. Page 40

Auctions – Fish auctions are one of the oldest methods of bringing together sellers and buyers to determine the price of the product. They are still in use today and though technologies and methods may have changed the basic principle remains the same. Auctions have changed in the range of services they provide their clients which extend from procurement, to information gathering and management, to grading, packaging, and even delivering. However, European auctions face challenges from the falling catches of wild fish and the propensity of processors to import fish directly from abroad. Page 58

Brussels show highlights sustainability – again

In this Issue

Contents Eurofish around the world Contents

Sweden

32 Sweden’sfisheriessectorStructural measures to restore fleet profitability

38 ABCFoodaone-stop-shopforshellfishHigh value shellfish for the Swedish market

Aquaculture

50 FeedindustrydisplaysitswaresatEurotier2008Environmentally friendly feeds for good growth and healthy fishes

54 RecirculationtechnologistsseekinspirationfromwastewatertreatmentCheaper, more efficient technologies possible

56 CodfromNorwegianaquacultureA well-known fish species in a new quality

News

6 International News

Projects

14 SustainAquaentersthefinalphaseTraining courses for freshwater farmers

Fairs

16 17thEuropeanSeafoodExpositionand11thSeafoodProcessingEuropeGood business in hard times

20 Seafood- and technology news

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Contents Eurofish around the world Contents

Russia

40 NewtrendsinthefisheriessectorandonthemarketinRussiaImport substitution increases supply

44 NewlawsreducedependenceonimportsThe evolution of fishery legislation in Russia

46 LaMaréesourcesfishandseafoodfromaroundtheworldHigh value seafood for discerning customers

48 GulfstreamtofocusmoreontheretailsectorMaking the most of the economic crisis

Trade+ Markets

58 Fishauctions–thegatewaystointernationalseafoodmarketsFresh fish for the highest bid

FishInfonetwork News

62 Member Country News

62 Projects

64 Events

Service

65 Diary Dates

66 Imprint

66 List of Advertisers

� Eurofish Magazine3/2009

Eurofish is organizing a half a day workshop on recirculation systems in aquaculture as part of the aquaculture forum at Polf-ish 2009 on the afternoon of 16 June. The aquaculture forum is an initiative of the Polfish Trout Breeders Association and the Ministry of Agriculture in col-laboration with Aller Aqua. The workshop will discuss the trends and development possibilities for Polish and European aquacul-ture. Thematic panels will cover issues such as the sustainability of fish farming and fish welfare with the focus on the two main species farmed in Poland – carp and trout. In addition the work-shop will explain the criteria re-quired to apply to the European Fisheries Fund in Poland.

This half a day event to be held on the first day of the Polfish fair will give participants an overview of the latest technologies at hand for fish famers willing to move towards the future and enter the world of recirculation technologies.

Recirculation systems are held by many experts as the way forward for the further develop-ment of the aquaculture sector. This is especially true on the European continent where tra-ditional farming systems such as raceways, ponds or cages are increasingly competing for resources with other activities such as tourism, agriculture,

shipping, nature conservation, etc. In addition the rising cost of energy coupled with ever more stringent norms to restrict the environmental impact of farming activities means that traditional systems are increasingly being put under pressure.

Recirculation systems enable a production that optimizes energy use, is not dependant on specific environmental factors (such as water and air temperature) and greatly limits discharge levels. All these characteristics make recir-culation technologies the way of the future for aquaculture in Eu-rope if not in the world.

This is the reason why Eurofish in line with its mandate to support the development of the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Central and Eastern Europe has teamed up with FAO and the AKVA group, a leading consultancy firm in fish farming technologies, to produce a guide to recirculation technolo-gies. This guide aims at present-ing farmers or potential investors with the different alternatives of recirculation systems and will help them select the most appro-priate solution. This workshop will capitalize on this work to present fish farmers with the latest avail-able information on recirculation technologies.

The highlights of the workshop in-clude: the state of play regarding recirculation technologies for the fish farming sector; the main sys-tems and main species addressed; market potential of species and products from recirculation sys-tems; and case studies from some recent investments in recircula-tion systems in Europe. The target audience is fish farmers and po-tential investors.

Poland: Workshop on recirculation aquaculture

From May 2009 all herring and matjes products manufactured by Gottfried Friedrichs will be based entirely on fish that is cer-tified by the Marine Stewardship Council. The hundred-year-old German company is one of the most major suppliers of delica-tessen fish products to Europe-an markets. Eleven herring and matjes products from Friedrichs will now carry the MSC label signifying that the fish has been sourced from a well-managed and sustainable fishery. Frie-drichs sources the raw material for the production of its herring

and matjes products from Nor-wegian fisheries that have been certified to the MSC standard. Herring is the second most fa-voured species in Germany after Alaska pollock and is used in a variety of products. It is also widely consumed in other parts of the world and is an important part of the marine food chain. As a fatty fish it is a rich source of the omega-3 fatty acids that are linked to heart health. Proper management of herring stocks is essential to ensure that they can can continue to be exploited both now and in the future.

Germany: Gottfried Friedrichs to use MSC-certified product

Confidex, a Finnish company specialising in RFID technology has launched a new tag that can be directly attached to metal sur-faces without impairing its func-tion. The new compact tag has a range of 10 m on metal surfaces and was designed for high per-formance and cost efficiency. With an adhesive background the tag can be safely stuck to the

metal surface directly without the need for a spacer.The tag is designed specifically for metal surfaces but can also be used with with other surfaces with a slightly reduced performance. The tag is aimed at applications where hard tags cannot be used due to the cost and mechanical protection of the device is not necessary.

Finland: New RFID tag can be used on metals

Local groups in fishery areas were asked in January wheth-er they could gather finan-cial support from municipal and regional authorities for projects that would make fish-ery regions more attractive for business and tourism. Several of them responded positively and now the ministry for food, agriculture, and fisheries is encouraging them to apply for co-funding from the European Fisheries Fund. Small harbour

towns that need to retain their inhabitants and attract com-panies and tourists in order to thrive stand to benefit in par-ticular from these projects. The funds can be used for a wide range of purposes including business-generating activities, cultural events with a mari-time angle, improved services for industry, tourists or the lo-cal population, as well as for projects that benefit nature and the environment.

Denmark: EU funds to aid development of fishery areas

[ intErnational nEws ]

� Eurofish Magazine3/2009

The European Community and the Russian Federation have signed an agreement on cooperation on fisheries and con-servation in the Baltic Sea. The six year agreement will promote environmentally and and economically sustainable fishing. It will also contribute to the natural recovery of fish stocks and to the protection of the sea bed from damage caused by fishing nets. The annual turnover of Baltic fishing by the EU is estimated at EUR500 million. Milena Vicenová, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic, and Commissioner Joe Borg signed the Agreement on behalf of the European Community; the Russian Federation was represented by Andrei Krayniy, chief of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries.

“We have agreed a foundation for protecting fish stocks in the Baltic Sea,” said Milena Vicenová. “EU fishing fleets will be able to operate in the exclusive economic zone of Russia, while the Russians will have access to community waters. The cooperation is mutually beneficial and helps protect the environment.” The agreement anticipates specific technical measures which will for example specify areas closed for fishing, limit the number of days which fishing fleets can spend at sea and define mesh-sizes to avoid harvesting young or undersized fish which is not suitable for process-ing. The agreement also constitutes a joint committee to monitor adherence to the agreement by the contracting parties.

Brussels: EU, Russia sign agreement on fisheries in the Baltic Sea

The 10th edition of Polfish, the bian-nual fisheries trade fair, will be held in Gdansk on 16-18 June. This year the fair will include country pavilions from France, Norway, Greece, Spain, and Vi-etnam, as well as companies from Chi-na, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, Ire-land, Scot-land, Sweden and the USA. In addition to the trade fair, the event will feature a number of conferences, including one on the future of seafood processing organised by the Sea Fisheries Insitute. The fish process-ing industry exported 205 thousand tonnes of fish valued at EUR630m in in 2006. Canned and smoked fish, fillets and fish meat made up 92% of the ex-ported value. Most of this was exported to other countries in the EU. Poland alo imports significant volumes of fish, mainly raw material for the processing

industry. Herring, mackerel, salmon, and white fish, the most imported spe-cies, are imported primarily from the EFTA block, followed by EU countries and then third countries. Within Po-land itself consumption is only about 13 kg per capita which is about 60% of

the EU aver-age of 21.4 kg per capita. A n o t h e r highlight at Polfish will be the Mercurius G edanensis Competition which will reward the best product or technology

that is presented at the fair, while the Sea Fisheries Institute (MIR) will award its Golden Herring for the processing and promotion of the Baltic herring. The fair include busines meetings for entrepreneurs, culinary demonstra-tions for the HorReCa segment and a model seafood shop that will display different arrangements of a complete range of seafood from fresh to canned.

Poland: Polfish offers a range of fish and seafood-related events


10 Eurofish Magazine3/2009


Food quality and safety issued con-tinue to dominate the press, with most food companies spending large amounts of money to ensure that the food quality and assess-ment procedures in place are ad-equate and produce good and safe food. This holds true for companies and laboratories responsible for the processing of fish into various products, those responsible for re-searching safe new products, and departments within other compa-nies supporting these functions.

A new book, “Fishery Products – Quality, safety and authenticity” brings together details of all the major methodologies used to as-sess the quality of fishery products in the widest sense. The editors, Hartmut Rehbein and Jörg Oeh-lenschläger, both of Max Rubner-Institute, Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, Department

of Safety and Quality of Milk and Fish Products, Hamburg, Germany, have included chapters on the as-sessment of authenticity, and sev-eral chapters on quality assessment using various methods, such as:

- Texture measurement- Electronic nose and tongue- Protein- and DNA-based

methods- Colour measurement

This timely volume will serve as a vital tool for all those working in the processing of fishery and aquaculture products, includ-ing laboratory staff working in regulatory bodies, food quality control personnel, food scientists, food technologists, nutritionists, seafood trade bodies, seafood labelling regulatory bodies, gov-ernment food protection agen-cies and environmental health personnel. Libraries in research establishments and universities where food science, food tech-nology, nutrition, aquaculture, fisheries and biological sciences are studied and taught should have copies of this important publication on their shelves.

“Fishery products – Quality, safety and authenticity” edited by Hart-mut Rehbein and Jörg Oehlen-schlägerWiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-4162-8, 477 p, EUR112.50

Germany: New book from WEFTA scientists

The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnol-ogy has analysed the emissions of carbon dioxide generated during the entire life cycle of a piece of salmon farmed in Norway and consumed in Stockholm.

The analysis showed that emissions over the life cycle of the salmon meal were comparable

to those from a chicken meal and about half the emissions produced by pork and less than 14% of those generated by beef. The emis-sions were calculated taking into account the raw materials used in the feed, feed produc-tion and transport, fish farming and process-ing, transport to the wholesaler and retailer and then to the consumer, ending with preparation

of a salmon fillet in the consumer’s home. the study quantified all emissions that contribute to global warming, acidification and eutrophication and all electricity and fuels consumed. The study was conducted on behalf of Skretting, who were interested in determining the carbon footprints left by the aquaculture industry and the impact of fish feed.

Norway: Salmon produces less greenhouse gas than pork or beef

The Skretting Aquaculture Re-search Centre (ARC) in Norway has successfully tested salmon grower feeds with a fishmeal content reduced to 15% and with no land animal protein. The trials were conducted on three groups of 180 fish with an initial weight of about 2.6 kg which increased to about 4.7 kg over the next 73 days. Of the three feeds one was a con-ventional feed with 25% fishmeal, while another was an experimen-tal feed with 15% fishmeal and certain active ingredients which are under investigation. The last feed had a 15% fishmeal content

and no active ingredients. The control group fed with the first feed had a relative growth index of 169%, while the group fed the feed with 15% fishmeal and active ingredients achieved a growth in-dex of 172%. The last group which received the basic 15% fishmeal feed and showed a growth rate of 152%. The feed conversion rate in all cases was below 1. If the results are implemented in com-mercial feeds around two thirds more salmon can be grown from the same volume of fishmeal, says Alex Obach, managing director of Skretting.

Norway: Successful trials of Skretting salmon feed with reduced fishmeal content

Grieg Seafood Hjaltland has opened a GBP4.2m (EUR4.68m) extension to its existing process-ing facilities on the Shetland Islands and launched its Wild-Waters range of smoked and marinated products. These will include several new flavours as well as traditional smoked salm-on and organic smoked salmon available as whole pre-sliced sides, loins and sliced packs. The seafood industry is by far the big-gest employer on the Shetlands and the new extension marks a welcome move into the produc-

tion of value-added products. The plant has a capacity of 12,000 kilos of smoked and marinated salmon a day and will employ 70 people. It includes a smoke-houses for smoking both hot and cold salmon, an automatic salting line for curing and mari-nating, four slicing lines and a packing line. The new facility will allow the company to harvest, fil-let, process, smoke and dispatch the fish all within 24-36 hours, enabling a fresher product with a longer shelf life for retailers and consumers.

UK: Grieg Seafood expands processing capacity on Shetlands

Register online at www.worldfishingexhibition.com

The world’s largest and most influential commercial fishing event will feature:

50 Fisheries Ministers who will attend the Fifth International Fisheries Ministers Conference

The First World Summit on Fisheries Sustainability, supported by Imperial College, FAO & Spanish Ministry of Fisheries

• Launch of AQA (Aqua Farming International) Exhibition• AQA Conference supported by the European Aquaculture Society • Presentation of the WWF International Smart Gear Competition Awards

• Held only once every six years in Vigo, the biggest fresh and frozen fish landing port in Europe, WFE is supported by APROMAR, ConselloRegulador do Mexillon and AROGA. The last event in 2003 saw over 70,000 world wide trade visitors doing 400 million Euros worth ofbusiness with 800 exhibitors from 80 countries.

The commercial fishing world will meet at Vigo ’09 – make sure you are a part of it!

Can you afford to miss the future of fishing and aquaculture?

WFE_A4_LatestAd.qxp:WFE_A4 15/5/09 14:29 Page 1



The North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission has taken measures that will close off an area of more than 330,000 square kilometers to bottom fisheries in the high seas in the north east Atlantic. The decision follows several precau-tionary measures taken in recent years that have prohibited fisher-ies or reduced fishing effort in the NEAFC regulatory area. The latest measures, which were adopted by postal vote, mean that fishing ac-tivities by vessels flying the flags

of NEAFC Contracting Parties or Co-Operating Non-Contracting Parties, with fishing gear which is likely to contact the seafloor dur-ing the normal course of fishing operations, are prohibited within these areas. The proposal to close these areas was assessed by ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, against criteria developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation to identify vulnerable marine eco-sytems.

UK: NEAFC prohibits bottom fishing in large area in north east Atlantic

The red border delineates one part of the NEAFC regulatory area in the high seas in the north east Atlantic. The green areas have been closed off to bottom fishing to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems

Matje herring, the Dutch salted herring speciality, is tradition-ally consumed in the summer months. The Dutch fleet catches the fish in May and June when

the fat content high enough to en-able it to be processed, however enough fish is caught during this period to last for an entire year. To promote the consumption

The Netherlands: New matje herring season to be launched on 9 June

Biologists estimate that 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of fish are dis-carded in the waters around Denmark each year because the fish are either undersized or a low value species. This is a waste of fish and has an impact on the sustainability of stocks. The Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries is now pushing to introduce a total ban on discards in the Baltic Sea as a pilot project that could pave

the way for a general ban on dis-cards in the EU’s common fish-eries policy as part of the reform of the policy that is expected to enter into force in 2012. The Bal-tic Sea has relatively few species and therefore lends itself to a pi-lot project of this nature. To dis-cuss the organisation and imple-mentation of a ban the minister is planning to invite the coun-tries surrounding the Baltic to a workshop before the summer.

Denmark: Plan to introduce ban on discards in the Baltic Sea

Participants in the Freshwater Trout Aquaculture Dialogue, one of eight dialogues launched by the WWF, will meet again in May on the Faroe Islands to de-velop the criteria and indicators that will provide the framework for the final global standards for responsible trout aquaculture. The standards aim to minimise the social impact of trout farm-ing as well as its effect on the environment such as through water pollution or the transmis-sion of disease. The meeting will be attended by scientists, indus-

try suppliers, conservationists, producers and others in order to develop standards that will be transparent, open and based on consensus among all stake-holders. The meeting will be held in conjunction with a meeting of the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers. The draft standards that will be proposed by the Dialogue’s steering com-mittee will reflect the discussion at the Faroe Islands meeting. They will be subjected to a six-month period of public comment before being finalised next year.

USA: WWF’s Freshwater Trout Aquaculture Dialogue to draft standards

of matjes outside the summer months the Dutch Fish Marketing Board has initiated a number of activities in the Netherlands and abroad. On 9 June at precisely 11.00 the first barrel of matje her-ring from the new season will be auctioned in Scheveningen with the proceeds going to a charity. Last year saw the second edition of the Matjes on Ice campaign in Germany, which was to promote the consumption of the product in the winter. Germany is one of

the biggest markets for Dutch seafood and here too the matje season is launched with much festivity. Following tradition the first barrel of Dutch matje herring will be auctioned in Bremen on 10 June. Participants in the auction can bid with a clean conscience as matje herring caught by the Dutch, Swedish, or Scottish fleet is certified by the Marine Steward-ship Council, while Danish and Norwegian vessels are expected to achieve certification this year.



With the adoption of a Green Paper on the future of the Common Fisheries Policy the European Com-mission has initiated what it envisages will be a broad discussion on the shortcomings of the CFP and how they should be addressed. Fishermen and their representative organisations, scientists, NGOs, other stakeholders, and concerned citizens are all encouraged to contribute to the dialogue which is the first step in the process of reforming the CFP. The opportunity to respond will be availa-ble until 31 December 2009. The Green Paper seeks to raise awareness of the challenges faced by the fisheries sector in recent years and hopes to draw a public response that will help formulate a modern, simple, sustainable, and longlasting system for managing fisheries in the EU, says Joe Borg, Com-missioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Ocea-

na, an NGO dedicated to protecting the marine en-vironment, says that this may be the last chance to reverse the current practice of fishing down marine ecosystems. If the process fails to yield a radically reformed CFP the consequence will be impover-ished seas and an economically unviable fishing industry, while a reformed CFP will bring benefits not only to the fisheries industry but also to all of Europe’s citizens. Among the problems identified by the Green Paper is that decision making is too centralised. This resonates particularly in Scotland that has long called for a return of historic rights to coastal nations to manage their fisheries locally in cooperation with other countries in the region. The call for a review of fishery policy has therefore been welcomed in Scotland as an opportunity to build a sustainable future for fishing.

Belgium: Green Paper to launch public debate on CFP reforms

The volume of global production from aquac-ulture has grown from less than 4% of total sea-food production in 1970 to 36% in 2006 reports the FAO. In the world as a whole aquaculture has been growing on average at 8.7% a year since 1970. However, this has not been the case in Europe where aquaculture production has remained more or less stable at about 1.3 mil-lion tonnes a year. In a Communication to the European Parliament the European Commis-sion has studied the reasons for this stagnation and proposed ways to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of the sector. By supporting research and development in the sector and en-

suring the availability of physical requirements such as water and land, and including the sector in planning considerations authorities will assist the competitiveness of the sector. In its strategy for European aquaculture presented in 2002 the Commission highlighted its objectives of de-veloping an environmentally-friendly industry with safe and healthy products. While these have broadly been realised the anticipated growth has failed to materialise due partly to changes within the EU itself, but also due to the rapid evolution of the sector on a global scale. With this new ini-tiative the Commission hopes to revive growth in a sector it deems strategically important.

Belgium: New initiative to boost growth in European aquaculture sector Spain: World

Fishing to include conference on sustainabilityThe First World Summit on Fisheries Sus-tainability will be held at the World Fish-ing Exhibition that takes place in Vigo, Spain, on 16-19 September 2009. It is an initiative by the Spanish Minister of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, with the collaboration of the FAO and the participation of the Imperial Col-lege, London. The conference will seek to define guidelines for the industry that will achieve sustainability from the point of view of the stocks, the industry, and the communities that depend on the fisher-ies sector. According to David Agnew, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Impe-rial College of London while maximis-ing performance for all objectives is not possible, it should be feasible to devise management schemes that ensure com-mercial and social sustainability without compromising biological sustainability. Holding the conference at World Fishing will ensure the participation of the fisher-ies administrators, companies, scientists, retailers and environmental organisations who will be attending the exhibition. En-suring broad-based support for any ini-tiatives that arise from the conference is crucial for achieving the ultimate goal of sustainability of the stocks, industry and the communities.


[ projEcts ]

SustainAqua is a three-year collective research project partly funded by

the European Union under the Sixth Framework Programme. The project is directed at the European freshwater aquacul-ture sector, which faces growing competition from countries with lower production costs. To make the industry both more sustain-able and more competitive the project investigated a variety of technologies in five different case studies in Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Swit-zerland. The technologies seek to improve different conventional aquaculture systems by lowering construction, maintenance and running costs, particularly in the area of wastewater treatment.

SustainAqua courses for freshwater

aquaculture farmers

As part of the SustainAqua project eight national European freshwa-ter aquaculture associations will provide professional training courses for quaculture farmers in the following countries: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Spain, and Tur-key. In addition, a omprehensive e-learning course will complete the training and information ac-tivities. The courses aim to help farmers sustainably restructure their farms to ensure long-term economic success; to produce more efficiently; to promote environmentally friendly and healthy products; and to improve their image. The courses will be conducted by experts in the fields of sustainable freshwater aquaculture.

Sustain Aqua enters the final phase

Training courses for freshwater farmersThe final months of the SustainAqua project have seen much of the work done during the course of the project come to fruition. The results of the five case studies have been compiled into a handbook, which will form the basis of the training activities to be held in May, June, and July. In August the results will be presented and discussed at a special session at Aquaculture Europe 2009, the European Aquaculture Society’s annual conference to be held this year in Trondheim, Norway just before AquaNor.

Training courses schedule 2009Course 1 Course 2 Course 3

Hungary, AKVAPARK SustainAqua – Towards sustainable aquaculture

Intensive systems training Pond aquaculture training

Date, location 27 May Szarvas 25 June Szarvas 26 June Rétimajor

Contact Dr. Dénes Gál, Szarvasi Akvapark Egyesület, [email protected], +36 66 515323

Germany, VDBI Beginner‘s course for recirculation aquaculture systems

SustainAqua and carp farming SustainAqua and trout farming

Date, location 18-19 June Potsdam 2 July Bremerhaven 3 July Wietzendorf near Soltau

Contact Prof. Reiner Knösche, Verein der Deutschen Binnenfischerei e.V., [email protected], +49 3322 238812

Sweden, VRF Results of the “SustainAqua“ project: Applications in Sweden?

Sustainable aquaculture in general, esp. recirculation systems something for this facility?

Date, location 13-14 May Göteborg 10-11 June Kälarne

Contact Eva Brännäs, Vattenbrukarnas Riksförbund, [email protected], +46 907868295

Poland, PTBA SustainAqua and trout farming SustainAqua and trout farming SustainAqua and trout farming

Date, location 16-18 June Gdansk 11 July Nożynko 25 July Rytel

Contact Anna Pyć, Stowarzyszenie Producentów Ryb Łososiowatych, [email protected], +48 668815097

Spain, OPP SustainAqua and trout farming – Towards sustainable aquaculture

SustainAqua and carp farming – Towards sustainable aquaculture

Date, location 19 June Madrid 03 July Zamora

Contact Raúl Rodriguez Sainz-Rozas, Organización Productores Piscicultores, [email protected], +34 91-5530616Concha Jambrina Leal (responsible for coordination), [email protected]

Austria, ÖFV Sustainable Aquaculture - Results of SustainAqua focusing on carp culture

Sustainable Aquaculture - Results of SustainAqua focusing on trout culture

Sustainable Aquaculture - Results of SustainAqua focusing on carp culture

Date, location 19 June A-3943 Schrems

24 June A-4642 Sattledt 25 June A-8142 Wundschuh

Contact Dr. Günther Schlott, i.A. Österreichischer Fischereiverband, [email protected], +43 2853 78207

Turkey, BTG SustainAqua - Trout farming and recirculation aquaculture

SustainAqua - Trout farming and recirculation aquaculture

SustainAqua - Trout farming and recirculation aquaculture

Date, location 4 July Rize 18 July Kahramanmaras 25 July Fethiye

Contact Deniz Tosun, Su Ürünleri Tanitim Dernegi, [email protected], +90 53336083 88

Denmark, ODA SustainAqua and improving energy efficiency in recirculation aquaculture

Sustainable management on recirculated trout farms

Sustainable aquaculture - manage-ment, quality and certification

Date, location 15 June Silkeborg 18 June Silkeborg 23 June Silkeborg

Contact Ms Lisbeth Jess Plesner, Danish Aquaculture Organisation (ODA), [email protected], +45 89 21 22 60

Quality you desire

from Urker Vishandel G Koffeman bv

Urker Vishandel G. Koffeman B.V.Vliestroom 4, 8321 EG Urk, The Netherlands

Tel.: +31 527 690 361 - Fax: +31 527 690 069 - Mobile: +31 651571305Internet: www.fi shdealer.nl - E-Mail: [email protected]

Your connection to the North Sea


The large number of E-mails and circulars sent out prior to the ESE suggested there

was cause for concern. Never be-fore, nor to such an extent, had representatives of the trade press – who are usually rather neglect-ed by the fair organisers – been flooded with information. They were repeatedly reminded just how important the ESE and the SPE were for the global seafood industry: Anyone who wanted

to know what was happening in the industry could not afford to miss the Brussels fair. To prove the international significance of the exhibitions the organizers did not, however, state the number of registrations received for 2009 but drew attention to the record re-sults of previous years. That kind of thing makes one suspicious particularly since the Boston Sea-food Show had reported a con-siderable drop in exhibitor and

visitor figures just a few weeks in advance of the Brussels event.

After making a tour of the halls for orientation on the first morning of the exhibition it was possible to sound the all-clear, however. There seemed to be the usual number of stands in most of the exhibition halls. Although only two thirds of Hall 11 were taken and Hall 8 was even almost completely empty next to the patio even critical visi-

tors never gained the impression that the global seafood industry might be in the midst of a serious crisis. Nearly 700 companies ex-hibited in Brussels this year. The number of technology exhibitors at the SPE was even said to have risen slightly.

It is thus not surprising that within the first few hours of the fair a feel-ing of contentment prevailed eve-rywhere and the relief was actually

17th European Seafood Exposition and 11th Seafood Processing Europe

Good business in hard timesA lot of the exhibitors and visitors who made the journey to the prominent seafood fairs in Brussels at the end of April were probably rather anxious. In the run-up to the event no one could say for sure what effect the global economic crisis would have on exhibition business. Already after the first day, however, many of them were relieved to see that things were going better than expected. Although the exhibition was slightly smaller this year, this development was not detrimental to initiating contacts or doing business.

ese / spe brussels


review

tangible. What pleased exhibitors in particular was the attentive, sharply focused discussion and conversation at their stands. To save costs a lot of companies had thought it wise to send only those representatives to Brussels who actually played an active part in the buying or sales departments. That meant that the majority of the visitors who had in previous years only come to Brussels to have a look, pick up information and gain inspiration for new prod-ucts had stayed at home this year. This is something the fair organis-ers probably regret because the overall visitor numbers fell, but it was welcome to a lot of exhibitors because it meant that exhibition business was more concentrated, more result-oriented. It was often possible to achieve with just a few words what might otherwise have required long negotiations.

Interesting propositions but

hardly any new trends

One of the decisive factors that contributed to the satisfaction with the fair was that hard eco-nomic periods make people more modest. At one stand we heard the comment: “We didn’t gain any new customers but we have at least kept our old ones”. That is already considered to be an achievement for which a lot of companies are prepared to do additional work. Smaller order volumes, but to make up, more frequent ones demand more flex-ibility on the part of the suppliers with regard to stock-keeping, lo-gistics and service. Other com-panies had done their sums and come to the conclusion that the fair was a worthwhile investment despite the high cost. “In order to see as many customers as we can meet in Brussels we would have to spend even more time and money on flights, meals, and

accommodation.” The Brussels fair this year again proved to be the ideal one stop venue for the industry’s top decision-makers, where primary producers, proc-

essors and traders can meet each other. The exhibition’s busy stat-isticians calculated that based on the average of the past years every company that visited the

ESE has an annual purchasing power of 2 million euros. Such mathematical exercises are not very meaningful but give a cer-tain idea of the visitors’ econom-ic potential.

What holds true for the ESE ap-plies even more to the SPE bear-ing in mind that the efficiency, performance and precision of technical equipment and processing machines influence a company’s economic result in no small way. As in previous years the SPE hardly left out any aspects of the processing chain. The ex-hibits covered an interesting and extensive range of packaging and materials, cooling and freezing plants, equipment and processing machines, hygiene, control and quality assurance systems. More value-adding, better utilisation of raw materials, and energy-saving were the major topics.

Although slightly smaller than last year the ESE and SPE were as hectic as usual. Even critical visitors could not discern that the global seafood industry was going through an economic crisis.

Every aspect of the processing industry was represented at SPE. More value-addition, improved utilisation of raw materials, and reduced energy consumption were the strongest selling points.


ese / spe brussels

There were no fundamentally new trends to be picked up in Brussels. As in previous years there were some attractive ideas that ad-dressed the growing health aware-ness of consumers. Topics such as traceability and convenience, i.e. more value-adding and process-ing, were also in focus again.

Sustainability becoming a “megatrend“

in the seafood industry

However, the general concern for the future of global fish resources put everything else into the shade: sustainability is developing more and more into the prevailing “megatrend” in the fish industry. More and more companies are displaying the blue MSC logo and the exhibition programme also offered a number of items on this theme.

During the exhibition the Norwe-gian-Russian Barents Sea Com-mission reported, for example, on the objectives and achievements of their work in this region whose fish stocks are among the best managed in the world. On the last day of the fair it was announced that the MSC certificate was to be awarded for the Norwegian spring herring and mackerel fish-ery. One of the conference topics at ESE was “Sustainability of the European Seafood Industry”. Most of the speakers took a hard line on the EU’s current Common Fisher-ies Policy (CFP), with one of them even calling it senseless. The Commission’s Green Paper which had been published a week ear-lier took a similarly critical stand, calling (once again) for a “funda-mental reform” of current fishery practices. Several times at the conference there were demands for the self-regulatory powers of the market to be allowed a strong-er role. Poul Torring (Gemba Sea-food Consulting) who advises the

Danish government on fisheries issues, believes that in order to re-ally make fishing sustainable the current top-down management style would have to be replaced by a more strongly market regulated system. Such a market-based management system would lead to a fundamental change in fish-eries practices and much more ef-ficient resource management.

Niels Wichman, the President of Europeche, the ”fish industry’s voice“ so to speak, demanded a fisheries policy reform that would be comprehensible and logical to the fishermen, too. Fishermen and industry should be given more responsibility within the system. Excessive bureaucracy was a problem and an obstacle to positive approaches. As an ex-ample he mentioned the red tape involved in the MSC certification process. Tony Long, Director Eu-ropean Policy Office at WWF de-manded that Brussels should give the responsibility for fishing mat-ters back to the individual coun-tries and regions.

Over the years politics has taken everything into its own hands

and tries to force the fishing sector quasi into a strait-jacket. Nearly everything is dictated, regulated and monitored with-out integrating the industry into the system or giving it the re-sponsibility it is due.

And that is why it has so far not proved possible to solve the main problem among the five basic errors of common fish-eries policy which are listed in the Green Paper: the overca-pacity of the fleets. There are still too many fishing vessels in Europe in relation to the avail-

able fish. This costs subsidies, makes a lot of companies un-profitable and damages the fish stocks. Whilst about 25% of the commercially utilized stocks in the world are considered to be overfished, the share of over-fished stocks in European wa-ters is already 88%.

German companies well positioned in the

international arena

Although most of the exhibitors and visitors were definitely satis-fied with the Brussels fairs this year it would be premature to sound a general ”all clear” with-in the industry. This is because in many regions of the world the effects of the crisis are very noticeable. The seafood indus-tries in countries that offer their products raw, i.e. without further processing, are particularly hard hit. The Seafood Exporters’ Asso-ciation of India, for example, is expecting exports to fall by 40% this year.

The fact that German seafood products can not only keep up with international competi-tion but can even point the way was again proved at this year’s Prix d’Elite. Following the suc-

Overall the impression of the ESE and SPE was overwhelmingly positive. Most visitors and exhibitors deemed the trip to Brussels to have been worth it.


review

cess of Stuerck Delikatessen in 2008 when they won two prizes for their “Bären Beißer” it was Deutsche See that enjoyed a double win this year with their range of innovative barbeque products.

The balance at the end of the ESE and SPE was again basically positive this year and the journey to Brussels is likely to have been worthwhile for most exhibitors and visitors. Despite this general satisfaction there is one rather annoying point which should not go unmentioned, however, and that is the chosen date of the fairs! Whoever came up with the idea of scheduling the events for the 28 to 30 April? In one of the above mentioned circulars the fair organisers claimed it was an ideal time for visitors and exhibi-tors to look out for new business

opportunities in hard economic times. The rather thin visitor crowds on the last day before May 1st proved, however, that a lot of

people could not follow this logic and preferred to leave so as to be home again in time for the public holiday.

Concerns about the sustainability of resources have increasingly become the megatrend of the industry.

Themes like traceability and convenience, meaning more value-addition, were again in the spotlight.


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Seafood- and technology newsSmoked trout fillets from traditional kilns

Albafish is a vertically organised Turkish company that is mainly specialised in the farming and smoking of rainbow trout. All the different stages of the value adding chain from the hatching of the eggs to trout farming and smoking are united within the company.

The trout come from three company-owned farming facilities whose production capaci-ties amount to a total of 3,000 t. This quantity is sufficient to produce about 1,500 t smoked fillets. Albafish’s smokehouse was founded in 1995 and was geared to exports right from the start (smoked fish is not eaten very often in Turkey).

That is why product quality was always of such immense importance. The largest of the trout farms uses spring water which results in the fishes having a pure, unadulterated fla-vour. In 2002 Albafish founded its own feed company so that they would always have trout feed available in the desired quality.

Smoking is done the traditional way in kilns over an open fire in oak and beech wood smoke. The fish are not filleted until they have been smoked so that the fillets remain succulent. Product samples constantly un-dergo microbiological and sensory testing in the company laboratory. The trout fillets are vacuum-packed without the skin in the stand-ard sizes 100, 125 and 500 g and then delivered frozen to the customers. Fresh or frozen trout are also available if required: gutted (200-220

g), boneless (180-220 g), or as butterfly fillets (140-160 g).

Albafish received several awards for its quality products over the past few years and BRC cer-tification should be complete by mid-2009. In addition to trout the company also offers salm-on, mackerel and bonito in various processing forms. The range also includes smoked eel fillets that come from the traditional Dutch smokehouse W. Kok Spaarndam upon which was bestowed the title ‘Purveyor to the Court’ on the occasion of its centenary in 1960. Al-bafish has co-operated with the company for a long time.

Albafish already supplies its trout products to customers in The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Sea bass and dorade are soon to be added to the product list.

Range of fish fillets extendedThe seafood importer Anduronda whose product portfolio comprises over 300 fish, shellfish and crustacean products, has sub-

Dr Gökcay Altin (l.) and Kurbet Acar (r.) from Albafish and D.P. van der Wel (centre) from W.Kok Spaarndam. The co-operation between the Turkish and Dutch smokehouses has proved a success.


product news

stantially extended its range of frozen fish fillets to meet increasing demand. The new products include popular species such as red-fish, red mullet and tilapia. With this expand-ed product range Anduronda would be able to react more specifically to changing demand, explained Buying and Export Manager Wal-ter Elias. Particularly during hard economic times, a lot of customers preferred to have just one supplier for everything because this slimmed down orders and invoice process-ing. Anduronda had adjusted to the new market situation. Most of their products were constantly available and the company,

which exports Europe-wide, has about 1,200 t in stock. This enables them to cater to very different customer requirements. Whether for smaller deliveries, more frequent orders or combinations of mixed deliveries – An-duronda always looks for solutions together with its customers.

In the crustacean segment which is the company’s main competence the range of Black Tiger shrimps (Penaeus monodon) has been extended by the elaborate and very attractive processing form “center peeled”. These are whole shrimps of which only the rear part is peeled. The front part and the fan tail remained unpeeled so that the shrimps look whole but are ready to eat. Center peeled Black Tiger shrimps are available in counts of 13/15 to 21/30. Other new products in the breaded range are Ca-lamares Romana Premium, squid rings in a crispy batter.

Scallops in various product varieties

Blue Bay is a young, medium-sized seafood company that processes and trades fish and seafood on the US American east coast not far from New York. Their main product is scallops (Pecten spp.) which they offer fresh or frozen as whole shells, in half shells or as pure meat

with or without coral. Blue Bay also offers products based on various fish species such as fillets and tails of American angler (Lophius americanus) or thorny skate wings (Raja ra-diata).

All of the raw materials come from daily catches. Blue Bay buys them from 20 to 30 small boats in the region that fish directly off

Organizer: The Nor-Fishing FoundationKlostergata 90, NO-7030 Trondheim, Tel +47 73 56 86 40, Fax +47 73 56 86 41, [email protected]

INTERNATIONAL AQUACULTURE

BIOSECURITY CONFERENCE17-18 AUGUST 2009

www.iabconference.org

CONFERENSE AND ANNUAL MEETING OF THEEUROPEAN ACUACULTURE SOCIETY14-17 AUGUST 2009www.easonline.org

1 9 7 9 - 2 0 0 9

30 YEARSfor aquaculture industry

AQUA NOR - The important international venue for the aquaculture industry through a period of 30 years.

At Aqua Nor 2009 a large number of exhibitors will introduce novelties in the fields of research, technology, fish feed, fish health, training, funding, environmental protection etc.

In connection with Aqua Nor, international conferences will discuss progress and challenges in research and aquaculture.

Welcome to Aqua Nor 2009as exhibitor, visitor or as conference participant.

more at: www.nor-fishing.no

AQUA NORInternational Exhibition18 - 21 August 2009 Trondheim Nor way

2009

Buying and Export Manager Walter Elias. Anduronda’s extensive product portfolio comprises over 300 fish, shellfish and crustacean products.


ese / spe brussels

the coast within a 50 sea mile wide strip. This enables the company to offer the high-quality products in maximum freshness all the year round. Because Blue Bay buys directly from the fishermen without using an intermediary the prices are relatively attractive. The com-pany holds HACCP certification and is regu-larly monitored by the FDA. Blue Bay already exports to several European countries.

Grinding technology for the food processing industryThe delivery programme of GS-Schleiftechnik comprises scales, POS cash register systems, price labellers, slicers and hand-held knives for industry, fresh counters and trade. The com-pany from Höchstadt in Bavaria has developed particular competence in the area grinding and polishing machines which it has been manufac-

turing and marketing for about 20 years. “The quality and efficiency of our products is our ab-solute priority”, says company owner Michael Geiselsöder. The product range is constantly further developed in co-operation with cus-tomers. Through their own development and production in Germany they can react flexibly to all customer wishes. GS-grinding machines enable wet grinding and polishing on one ma-chine. Slow running grinding discs and the con-stant knife grinding angle ensure simple safe handling by the user. This makes it possible to sharpen a hand-held knife in just a few seconds irrespective of its shape and size. The protected wet grinding system fulfils high hygiene stand-ards, too, because the grinding dust is captured in the water. The wet grinding system guaran-tees that it will be a long time before the knife needs sharpening again and causes minimum wear to the knife steel because only hundredths of a millimetre are ground off per process and overheating is prevented. The machines’ robust stainless steel casing and constructive details ensure easy cleaning.

The US state of Alaska was again present at this year’s ESE with a big national pavilion. In addition to the 12 participating companies, five other firms were also represented. Together, they offered the complete range of natural products from the North Pacific and Bering Sea: five wild salmon species including salmon caviar, Alaska pollack, sablefish, halibut, plus other species.

Like the Barents Sea in the North West Atlantic, the North West Pacific is also considered to be a highly productive and lucrative marine area that is man-aged in an exemplary way. Bruce Wallace, Vice Chair of the ASMI Board, pointed to the strict organisation of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council which bears sole responsibility for fisheries man-agement. Because only one single authority was responsible for the quotas and controls, this avoided struggles for competence and ensured fast decisions on fisheries issues. The focus is on ecology, Wallace ensured us, and economic interests are not taken into consideration in the management process.

In 2007, a further 132,000 square sea miles of ocean bed were closed for bottom trawls,

which increased the total area of protected ocean bed to 517,000 square sea miles. The NPFMC even closed the American EEZ in the Arctic Ocean completely for the commercial fishery in 2008. This was purely a precaution-ary measure to ensure the more effective pro-tection of new fish stocks which are migrat-ing into the region on account of the climate change. The huge marine region would not be

re-opened until more was known about these species and reliable scientific methods for the monitoring and control of the area were avail-able. No compromises were permitted here: “That’s the way we carry out fisheries man-agement in Alaska.”

According to Bruce Wallace aquaculture should continue to be prohibited in Alaska by the con-stitution. The only exception was mollusc pro-duction which could be extended, particularly in the geoduck, oyster, scallop, cockles and clam segments.

Wallace is convinced that Alaska’s seafood in-dustry has made considerable headway in the area of product quality, too. Fish handling had improved noticeably and there had also been notable progress in the field of waste avoid-ance. The focus was on improved utilisation of raw materials. Due to capacity bottlenecks during the fishing season the Alaskan industry still had to have part of the catch processed in Asia, however. But this share had fallen to about 35% of the catch in recent years.

Bruce Wallace, Vice Chair of ASMI Board. Ecology is the top priority during fisheries management, and economic interests are not taken into account.

Joseph Grucci and Robert Sudano. Blue Bay has only been trading seafood since 1998 but the family has been in the fish business for several generations.

Alaska Seafood Marketing InstituteUncompromising management, healthy stocks

GS grinding machines enable wet grinding and polishing in one machine.


product news

Salmon and sole rolls and Pelitas del MarHottlett Frozen Foods imports frozen sea-food products from Asia, Africa and North and South America. Since its foundation nearly 40 years ago the company has made itself a name throughout Europe as a reliable supplier of high-quality products. The core segments of the extensive product range are the two own brands Epic and Epic Select.

Hottlett’s product list includes a large variety of shrimp products from natural to exotic, finger food products, various skewers and seafood mixes, plus fish products based on freshwater and salt-water species, surimi, and various molluscs. In Brussels, the company had with them eleven new frozen products, among them Asian finger food and a fritto misto which can either be deep-fried or prepared in the oven. Mussel products from Chile (whole mussels and mussel meat) also met with inter-

est, as did fillets and portions of escolar (Indo-nesia) which is also known in Europe under the name barracoutas or snoeks.

From the Epic Select range Hottlett presented barbecue skewers with Pacific salmon (Onco-rhynchus keta) and Pacific cod (Gadus mac-rocephalus). The 100 g skewers (10% glazing) contain 60% salmon and 40% cod. The prod-uct comes in bags with 10 skewers, 12 bags in a carton.

An Epic Select product which is particularly attractive both to the eye and the taste-buds is a roll made of keta salmon and yellowfin sole (Limanda aspera). Each of the rolls which can weigh between 40 and 60 g contains about 70% sole and 30% salmon. Hottlett also presented ‘Perlitas del Mar’ – a breaded scallop imitation made of surimi which, according to Steven de Wachter from Hottlett is exceedingly tasty and amazingly close to the original The Perlitas are available in 600 g cardboard boxes and can be prepared easily in the deep-fryer.

Big profi ts from small pelagicsSmart budget equipment

Compact sorting line 4 / 5 grades

Continuous dozing by volume up to 10 t / h

High speed nobbing up to 600 fi sh / min

Innovative design and production

Contact us for details and orders:Mr. Arnis Petranis · E-mail: [email protected]: +371 2640 4797 · Internet: www.peruza.lv

The core segments of the extensive product range are the two Hottlett brands Epic and Epic Select.


ese / spe brussels

Intelligent refrigerant Ice Pack XLIce Fresh Concepts is specialised in the de-velopment, production and sale of intelligent packaging solutions. At the SPE the Dutch company presented Ice Pack XL, a new kind of hygienic refrigerant which fulfils all HACCP and BRC standards and offers the user benefits during the transport of perishable, tempera-ture-sensitive products. Ice Pack XL is built like a sandwich with two outer layers between which is a powdery, strongly absorptive poly-mer. The Ice Pack XL sheet is activated by sim-ply placing it in water. The water penetrates one of the outer layers and is absorbed by the polymer in the interior. Within 20 minutes the powder expands a hundredfold to form a gel which can subsequently be frozen in an industrial freezer tunnel (c. 3 minutes) or in a conventional cabinet freezer (c. 4-5 hours). It can then be used as a refrigerant instead of conventional ice.

According to the producer the Ice Pack XL has considerable advantages over ice. For exam-ple, no melt water collects in the pack, and the humidity level remains constant. Due to the high cooling capacity of the gel it is also possible to save weight. An 800 g Ice Pack

XL has the same cooling capacity as 1.2 kg of normal ice. The low space requirements are in favour of this solution, too. A 40 x 40 x 40 cm carton with 500 of these sheets only weighs 13 kg which turn into 400 kg of ice packs after activation. The cooling capacity lasts for about 48 hours (depending on the outer insulation of the packaging). The packs still retain their flexibility even when frozen and wrap snugly around the product. Ice Pack XL is made of FDA approved non-toxic materials and fulfils all requirements of the EU packaging directive. The activated sheets can be used several times and can be disposed of as normal domestic waste after use.

Finalist in the Seafood Prix d’EliteJ.C. David, a French smokehouse, was one of the finalists in the Seafood Prix d’Elite compe-tition this year at the European Seafood Expo-sition in Brussels. Based in Boulogne-sur-Mer

Managing Director Leon Hoogervorst. Ice Pack XL is particularly suited to cooling seafood, even for small deliveries.


product news

in north western France the company uses traditional wood-burning ovens to smoke its

products, which include herring, mackerel, salmon, and haddock. The product that made it to the finals as the ESE was a smoked had-dock hash aimed at retail sales from large and medium-sized commercial outlets. A chilled product with a shelf life of nine days the hash combines potatoes with smoked haddock to give a smooth textured mixture with a strong flavour of the two main ingredients. The 500 g container can be placed in a microwave to give a hot, flavoursome and healthy meal in the space of a few minutes. Smoked haddock is a company speciality. The fish is caught in the North East Atlantic and is lightly salted and then dyed using a natural product, roc-cou, that is derived from the seed of the fruit of the annatto tree, Bixa orellana. After being dyed the fish is smoked on oak wood in one of the company’s ancient ovens to give a product with an appetising orange or reddish hue. All the company’s products are labelled “Saveur en Or” in recognition of the authenticity of the manufacturing processes and to acknowledge their distinct origin and quality.

PortionCutter I-Cut 10: fast and accurateLike a lot of technology suppliers Marel trusts the well-known principle that par-ticularly during hard economic times

The smoked haddock hash from J.C. David combines health and convenience in a 500 g package.

On the first day of the exhibition the new I-Cut 10 was unveiled, the youngest member in the Marel family of portion cutters.

JoinusatPolfish2009forahalf-daypracticalwork-shop on the latest technologies in recirculation sys-temsforaquaculture.

Highlights of the programme are:- Stateofplayregardingrecirculationtechnologiesfor

thefishfarmingsector- Mainsystemsandmainspeciesadressed- Marketpotentialofspeciesandproductsfromrecir-

culationsystems- Casestudiesfromsomerecentinvestmentsinrecir-

culationsystemsinEurope

Speakersaredrawn from leading industryexperts inthe field of recirculation technologies with hands-onexperienceinimplementingthesystems.

ThiseventisorganizedbyEUROFISHintheafternoonof16June2009aspartoftheAquacultureForumor-ganizedbythePolishTroutBreederAssociationwiththesupportofMinistryofAgriculture.Thedetailedpro-grammeisavailableonwww.eurofish.dk.

Admissionisfree.

Workshop on recirculation technologies in aquaculture

Thiseventbenefitsfromthefinancialsupportof:


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most processors like to rely on automa-tion for increasing efficiency. On the very first day of the exhibition there was a small celebration to mark the unveiling of the new 1-Cut 10 – the latest member of the Marel family of portion cutters. The compact one-lane machine can cut fish fillets into portions of a given weight. It saves labour costs and, thanks to its accu-racy, materials, too. The operator can set either the length of the portions or their weight. The first time the product – usu-ally a fillet – passes through the machine a three-dimensional scan is produced of the product shape to enable calculation of the optimal cutting length. During the second passage the product is then cut at high speed.

Marel gives the maximum product size as 100 mm high, 650 mm long and 250 mm wide. According to company information the I-cut 10 can perform the work of up to four to six people cutting the fillets by hand. It is not only faster than manual cutting but also much more accurate because it takes into account the individual shape of the product when calculating the cuts. Two advantages that were particularly emphasized are the relatively low space requirement for the ma-chine and the easy cleaning of the system. The machine is designed with just two doors giving fast unrestricted access to all parts. In combination with the open construction of the cutting unit this makes service and main-tenance considerably easier. The machine’s interior meets far-reaching hygiene require-ments to prevent the settlement of hidden bacteria.

Trufka – Artificial caviar with black trufflesFounded in 1997 the Spanish company Pescaviar is specialised in the production and marketing of ’artificially“ produced caviar products based on herring, anchovies and lob-ster. Avruga is a versatile artificial caviar prod-uct based on herring that can be eaten hot or cold. It has a strong aroma which makes it

particularly suitable for salads, starters, pasta and various fish dishes. It is available in packs with 35, 55, 120, 350, and 940 grams. Moluga is produced from North Sea herring and has a slightly higher fat content which gives the product a smooth texture and a delicate fla-vour. The standard pack for Moluga is a 150 g tin. Anchoviar is based on anchovies which gives this caviar its distinctive taste. It is pale grey in colour and can, like all artificial caviars from Pescaviar easily be heated. It is available

in packs of 55, 120 and 350 g. A relatively new product in the range is Arënkha which is made of MSC-certified North Sea herring which gives it a particularly creamy texture and an intense flavour (145 g pack). Lobsviar is made from lobster and has its typical flavour and a slightly orange colour (55, 120 and 350 g).

Pescaviar’s latest product was launched di-rectly before the ESE: Trufka is a caviar-like product with an intense truffle flavour. Ac-cording to the pack, the “truffle pearls” con-tain 35% black truffles but no colouring or preservatives. Trufka is said to stand out for its aromatically nutty flavour. The product is pas-teurized and the producer gives the semi-pre-serve a shelf-life of 12 months if stored at be-tween 5 and 10°C. Trufka goes well with pasta and meat dishes, carpaccios and risottos. The agent for Trufka in Germany is Altonaer Kaviar Import Haus AKI.

Fish products from numerous sourcesSkaar International mainly used the ESE for fostering existing customer and supplier con-tacts and for providing information on their sup-ply programme to potential buyers. Founded in 1915, Skaar began exporting Norwegian fish to buyers throughout the world in 1949. Over the years, they began to sell high-quality fish prod-ucts from other sources, too, that are equally well-known for their great expertise, long tra-dition and careful handling of fish: Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, Faeroe Is-lands, Canada, and the USA. In order to meet their customers’ requirements Skaar Interna-

The knife sharpening machines

for the fish industry!

Die Messerschleiferfür die Fischindustrie!

Pescaviar’s range of artificial caviar products was extended directly prior to the ESE with the addition of Trufka, a product with black truffles.


product news

tional offers high flexibility and a broad product range, covering fresh and frozen products, por-tions, fillets, marinated, calibrated and packed.

Modern processing lines, the latest technical findings and a perfect control system based on laboratory and constant quality controls con-tribute towards guaranteeing the required qual-ity standards. In this way, Skaar International ensures that their customers get fish in the de-sired quality for the intended products.

In order to be able to meet the various require-ments of the different markets Skaar Interna-

Desietra and Dieckmann & HansenCaviar producer and trading house join forces

Since April this year the companies Dieckmann & Hansen GmbH and Desietra GmbH have been on the market as sister companies. Desietra is Ger-many’s first caviar manufacturer and produces caviar from various sturgeon species as well as various sturgeon meat products. They also mar-ket fertilised sturgeon eggs, fry and live sturgeon from their own production. Desietra does not only produce sturgeon in Fulda but also in several other European locations which either belong to the com-pany or are associated companies. Dieckmann & Hansen (Hamburg) imports, grades, selects, packs and trades caviar worldwide. The traditional com-pany was founded in 1869 making it the oldest existing caviar trading house in the world.

Through the new alliance both companies can work together on the market and make better use of their expertise. Desietra will concentrate on production whilst Dieckmann & Hansen will in future be re-sponsible for sales and distribution. Both compa-nies exhibited in Brussels and used their presence at the fair to inform visitors and customers about the new task assignment and responsibilities.

The two partners expect that their co-operation will enable them to better fulfil their customers’ desire for a quality and price optimised supply of caviar in all market-relevant packaging, with or without preservatives, fresh or pasteurized. Talking to us at the stand both parties assured us that the co-operation would not lead to an

increase in caviar prices. Desietra would af-ter all be able to save costs as a result of the co-operation and would be relieved of tasks for which caviar traders were better qualified. Apart from that they had the necessary con-tacts for addressing more specific targets on the market. Dieckmann & Hansen was pleased that they would have reliable access to a stable resource particularly since the quality of caviar from aquaculture had improved considerably in recent years. Desietra is expected to produce 5 t caviar this year and this quantity is to rise three- or fourfold by 2012. Baerii caviar which is sold under the Sibirskaya brand accounts for about half of production.

In addition to caviar Dieckmann will continue to supply a wide range of edible sturgeon products to wholesalers – from round fish and fillets to portions, fresh, frozen or smoked. The business segment for non-edible sturgeon products such as eggs, fry and live sturgeon, but also sturgeon skins, pituitary glands and swim bladders will re-main the responsibility of Desietra, however.

Mesfin Belay, Operations Manager Desietra, Werner Sager, Managing Director D & H, William Holst, Owner and General Manager, Christian Zuther-Grauerholz, Managing Director D & H and Jörg-Michael Zamek, Commercial Director Desietra.

Michael Lins, Office Manager Rostock, and Jens Möller, Sales. Skaar International offers a broad spectrum of fish species in a wide range of product forms from round, h & g to fillets and portions.


ese / spe brussels

tional in the meantime operates its own offices in Hamburg, Rostock, Florø (Norway) and To-kyo (Japan).

Slicers, processing lines and consultingSalmco is one of the countries that regularly exhibits at the SPE, and Company Manager Johann Glösmann confirmed that they had been at the Brussels fair right from the start. Salmco will be celebrating its silver jubilee in September and for that reason the company presented its complete product and service spectrum at the exhibition.

Salmco’s core competence is the manufacture of high-performance slicers, and these are in the meantime in operation in nearly 60 coun-tries around the globe. According to Glösmann, Salmco is the only German technology manu-facturer that produces both cold and fresh slic-ers for salmon. The basic range comprises nine

machine systems but the much larger number of tailor-made machines that have been de-rived from this is hardly conceivable for any-one who is not in the trade. Over the course of time Salmco has regularly developed and diversified its slicers. This enables them to offer every customer a tailor-made solution that will meet his specific requirements. Salmco’s cold

and fresh slicers can be designed as single or multi-lane slicers and cover all slicing require-ments. They enable cutting angles of between 0 and 90° and so can achieve technically ambi-tious vertical and horizontal cuts. The Salmco slicers have been tried and tested for 35 other fish species, too. According to Company Man-ager Glösmann the basis of this success is the geometrical shape of the blade teeth. The clever shape enabled fast slicing in continuous opera-tion with no sticking or tearing of the product.

The principle does not only work with fish but with quite different product groups. Salmco has found new application fields in the poultry sector where the machines are used for slicing chicken and duck breast. And the slicers are also ideally suited to slicing aspic products, which are particularly difficult to slice due to their combination of soft gelatine and firm product pieces.

Salmco does not only develop and manu-facture slicers but is also active in two other

The Salmco product range extends from simple manual slicers through fully automatic whole salmon slicers to different fresh salmon slicing solutions.

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business areas. On the one hand, their service spectrum includes the development and com-bination of their machines with the customers’ own specific processing solutions to form com-plete processing lines, and on the other hand they are active in international consultancy.

Forming machine FM 250 for premium productsAt the SPE in Brussels Vemag Maschinenbau exhibited a solution for the production of pre-mium formed products: the forming machine FM 250. Its patented low-pressure technique enables the production of exactly formed products that keep their shape even after cooking. The machine makes optimal use of the raw material and the overall load entering the waste water is low.

The FM 250 from Vemag is a convincing process-ing device due to the great variety of products that can be “modelled” from the fish mixture. Through the use of easily exchangeable push-on forming nozzles it is possible to create very different shapes such as fish burgers, fishcakes, fish fingers or fantasy shapes. The forming ma-chine transports and shapes the raw material very gently using low pressure so that the prod-ucts keep their shape even after cooking.

Usually a grinding machine is fitted directly before forming and portioning in the forming machine and this grinds the fish raw materials and ensures maximum product standardiza-tion. The grinder can be combined with a sep-aration attachment for automatic separation of hard constituents like bones or scales but also foreign bodies and this guarantees high product safety. The forming machine is direct-ly linked to the vacuum filling machine which carries the raw material gently to the forming unit. The operator can vary the shape and size of the product using quickly exchangeable push-on forming nozzles. The refit time for this process is less than a minute. This ensures high flexibility during product development: whether fish, disc, bagel, star or crescent – there is the right forming nozzle available for practically every product shape.

The ready formed products are separated with the help of a knife in the shaping nozzle and

placed onto a conveyor belt. The operator can adjust product thickness as desired with just one movement. If a particular pattern is de-sired on the product surface the forming ma-chine can also be fitted with a structured press belt or a corresponding structure roller. The Vemag graphic controls ensure exact weights and guarantee high reproducibility of results. Portioning speed can be adjusted flexibly. Up to 300 portions per minute are possible.

Standards for tilapia and pangasius introducedDuring the course of the ESE the GlobalGAP standards for tilapia and pangasius were pre-sented at a press conference. It had taken two years to develop them. In order to check the standards’ practical feasibility they were test-

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Area Sales Manager Ralph Jonas. The FM 250 forms various products from fish, meat and vegetable mixtures.

Certification, audits and inspections are carried out by independent bodies such as Bureau Veritas which is represented in over 100 countries.


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ed beforehand by authorized inspectors in 15 farming facilities in Asia and North and South America. The presentation of the standards marked the beginning of the phase in which they can be implemented worldwide in large and small farms. As one of the first big retail chains Royal Ahold announced at the press conference that they had already asked their suppliers and producers to as far as possible implement the GlobalGAP standards within 12 months. It was also announced that the shrimp standard that was introduced last year had been up-dated.

GlobalGAP (GAP stands for Good Agricultural Practices) was developed in 1997 by the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (Eurep). The GlobalGAP certification standards are voluntary standards for agricultural and aquaculture products that are used throughout the world to enable comparison of products and their production conditions. Because the GlobalGAP is a B2B (Business to Business) label which is only used within the supply chains it is generally not visible to consumers. 100,000 companies in 80 countries around the globe are already par-ticipating in the programme, and they are certified and moni-tored by 130 independent agencies such as Bureau Veritas Services. Numerous retailers and food service companies sell or use GlobalGAP products, among them COOP, Delhaize, McDonald’s, Metro, Tesco and Waitrose. The first standards for the aquaculture segment were set in 2004. They were for the farm production of Atlantic salmon.

Smokehouse shows20% growth, establishesnew sales officesThe salmon specialist Morpol/Laschinger has considerably in-creased its sales volume over the past few years, a development that has largely been driven by international expansion. Since the smokehouses merged two years ago their joint production of 40,000 t salmon products has risen substantially. Laschinger MD Andreas Maak is expecting a sales volume of about 60,000 tonnes this year - 20% more than the previous year.

One sign of the expansive development in recent years has been the establishment of several new branches and subsidiaries in

Joint Norwegian-Russian Fishing CommissionBarents Sea fish stocks at a high level

During the ESE the Norwegian-Russian Fishing Commission provided informa-tion at the Russian joint stand on the management and stock situation of cod and haddock in the Barents Sea. Founded in 1975 the JNRFC controls all impor-tant fishing matters in this region on a bilateral level. That includes for example fishing quotas (TAC), net mesh sizes, minimum size of the fish, sporadic closure of fishing regions because there are too many juveniles in the by-catch, the use of escape windows in the nets, etc. On the basis of common principles and cri-teria the JNRFC ensures long-term-oriented sustainable fishing in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.

The primary objective is to keep the stocks within safe biological limits to en-able sustainable commercial development of the seafood industry in the two countries. Since the foundation of the Commission practical solutions have been found for many problems. Both Russia and Norway see this co-operation as a great achievement. The model of joint management of fish stocks was unique in the world and it offered benefits to both parties. Its success could also be seen in the fact that the TACs had remained stable or even been increased during the past years.

Over the course of the years the co-operation had been extended to address not only absolute necessities but gradually an increasing number of other fields, too. Today the two countries exchange catch statistics and fishery inspectors, report ship positions, and have succeeded in considerably reducing illegal fish-ing in the region through co-ordinated controls.

Today fisheries management is based on an eco-system approach which does not only take the target species into account but other species, too. The achievements are considerable: the Barents Sea is a clean, healthy sea with high bio production levels, particularly of cod, haddock, capelin and northern prawn. The fishery is absolutely sustainable because the catches are continu-ally adapted to the prevailing stock situation. The cod stock is currently at the same level as in the 1940s, and the haddock stocks are at the highest level in their history.

Andrei Krayniy, chief of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, Russia, and Jørn Krog, Secretary General, Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Norway. A prerequisite for the success of the JNRFC is maximum transparency for both parties.

As a new product in their range Morpol /Laschinger presented salmon portions with grill marks which are processed with or without the skin in weights between 120 and 180 g.


product news

Germany and abroad. In addition to the exist-ing logistics centre in Platting a second distri-bution platform was recently set up in Harsum (between Hanover and Kassel). This is to enable better coverage of the north of Germany. Last year, an independent sales company ‘Morpol UK’ was founded in Aberdeen to, as Maak says, further develop the “relatively high market share” in Great Britain. A sales company was opened in Fukuoka, Japan last year, too, with employees who are well-versed in market and retail structures in Asia. In addition to the two smokehouses in Ustka (Morpol) and Lebork (Laurin) a third production facility is to go into operation this year or next in the French town of Louhans. Current plans are for a smokehouse with three processing lines and a capacity of 20,000-30,000 packs per day. “France is an im-portant market for us. It makes sense to open a production plant there so that we can concen-trate on the special requirements of the French market”, is the reason Andreas Maak gives. Con-sumer requirements in France differ from those in other countries with regard to pack size and

slice number: The French prefer the horizontal long slice and expect an exactly defined number of slices per pack. Morpol’s trade figures for fresh salmon fillets have also risen. It is the US-American market that is particularly prominent here: due to a reduction in deliveries of salmon

from Chile the American market now needs large quantities from Europe. The Norwegian raw materials are filleted and portioned in Po-land and then flown from Leipzig to Miami.

Demand for salmon on the US market is cur-rently so high that according to Maak a sub-stantial increase in retail prices can be expect-ed in Europe during the coming weeks. The reason for this is that prices of raw materials from Norway and Scotland have been rising steadily for a number of weeks.

As a new product in their range Morpol /Laschinger presented salmon portions with grill marks which are processed with or without the skin in weights between 120 and 180 g. The retail variant is uncooked but the company also offers pre-cooked tail loins for use in the catering sec-tor. Within the core range smoked salmon it is above all the wild salmon segment that is grow-ing at present with a volume of over 4,000 tonnes last year. The organic market segment is expand-ing, too, although no longer as fast as in the past.

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Morpol / Laschinger is growing. By the end of the year the four smokehouses in Poland, Germany and France and the distribution platforms in four countries will be handling 60,000 tonnes.

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Sweden’s fisheries sector

Structural measures to restore fleet profitabilityWith a population of 9.2 million and an area of 450,000 sq. km Sweden has one of the lowest population densities in the European Union at 22 people per square kilometre. It also has the longest coastline in the EU at 11,530 km, which abuts three seas, the Baltic, Kattegat, and Skagerrak. The bulk of the population lives in the southern part of the country, vast tracts of land in the north are sparsely populated and are snow bound in the winter. Conditions for the fishery industry vary from east to west and from north to south.

With a population of 9.2 million and an area of 450,000 sq. km Sweden

has one of the lowest population densities in the European Union at 22 people per square kilometre. It also has the longest coastline in the EU at 11,530 km, which abuts three seas, the Baltic, Kattegat, and Skagerrak. The bulk of the population lives in the southern part of the country, vast tracts of land in the north are sparsely populated and are snow bound

in the winter. Conditions for the fishery industry vary from east to west and from north to south.

Over the last ten years the indus-try has been characterised by fall-ing catches and fewer vessels. As in many other European countries fisheries is a tiny part of the econ-omy contributing just 0.1 percent to Swedish GDP and employing about 4,000 people (2006), but it has an important role to play as an employer in certain commu-

nities and as a supplier of fish to the domestic market. Declining numbers of boats, fishermen and catches is particularly obvious in the coastal fishery along the east coast and has also led to a fall in the quality and maintenance of infrastructure. At the same time fisheries are competing with other activities that also have claims on facilities at ports and in the water such as tourism, leisure activities, and marine sports. But, according to the Swedish Operational Pro-

Swedish fleets are being restructured both with and without public funds. This is a step towards ensuring their future profitability.

gramme for the Fishery Industry 2007-2013 (Operativt program för fiskerinäringen i Sverige 2007 - 2013), in rural areas fisheries, both marine and freshwater, as well as aquaculture, and processing are industries that can provide em-ployment and contribute to the supply of fish, and should be nur-tured. And diversifying into areas such as fisheries tourism which is increasing in popularity will reduce dependence on a single source of income and may con-tribute to rejuvenating areas that have seen a gradual decline.

Tonnage falls 20% in a decade

In 2007 the Swedish fleet com-prised 1,530 vessels, with a total tonnage of 43,325 and a total en-gine power of 213,930 kW. Com-pared with 1997 this represents a 21% decline in tonnage from 52,325, and an 18% decline in en-gine power from 251,955, while the number of vessels has fallen from 2,342, a decline of 53%. Over the period average tonnage has increased from 22 to 28 GT while average engine power has gone from 107 kW to 139 kW. The reduc-tion in the fleet has come mainly from within the first group (see below), that is, vessels under 12 m using only passive gear, which decreased by 31%, and the Baltic Sea-based trawlers with a 32% re-duction. Profitability within most segments is poor and it is only a few segments that are profitable enough to provide decent wages and have enough left over to make the necessary investments. Fish prices in many cases have not increased at the same rate as

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the costs incurred by a commer-cial fisher. The fleet is aging with 34% of the vessels older than 20 years, a quarter over 30 years, and a fifth over 45 years in age. It is not just the fleet that is aging. The number of licensed commercial fishers has also declined over the years by 36%, from 2,925 in 1995 to 1,880 in 2006. This in turn has led to an increase in the average age, which in 2006 was 55 years up from 48 years in 2001. The number of licensed fishers includes those working in saltwater and freshwa-ter, of which marine fishers at 90% of the total are in the overwhelm-ing majority.

Some publicly funded structural measures

This gradual decline is being re-sisted however by several struc-tural measures designed to pull fleets back into profitability. For Henrik Svenberg, Chairman of the Swedish Fishermen’s Federa-tion, making the fisheries profit-able will do much to solve some of the problems besetting the sector.”If you create a profitable and balanced fleet for production you will gain recruitment, money to the sector, and stable produc-tion,” he says. This view is en-dorsed by a study by the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Fisheries in neighbouring Denmark from February 2009 (A New Fisheries Policy Re-thinking the TAC/quota machine). The report revealed that transferable quotas in the pe-lagic and demersal fleets removed a 30% overcapacity in the demer-sal fleet without the use of public funds, attracted young fishermen to the industry, improved earn-ings, and got fishermen to think of increasing quality rather than volumes.

In Sweden different measures both drawing on and independ-ent of public funding through the

European Fisheries Fund (EFF) are being deployed to return the fleets to profitability. In the pe-lagic sector the introduction of individual transferable quotas has attracted capital to the industry and has resulted in some mergers and acquisitions within the in-dustry all without the use of pub-lic funds. Certain restrictions are built into the rules to prevent too much consolidation in the pelagic industry, which would be unde-sirable. Another vessel scrapping campaign in the demersal fishery for nephrops and white fish in the Skagerrak and Kattegat is ongoing. Funded by the EFF this campaign should be completed by the end of the year with the decommis-sioning of between 25% and 40% of the fleet. According to Mr Sven-berg if even 25% of the vessels are removed from service this would suffice to balance fleet capacity with the available resource.

Support for the small scale Baltic fishery

Axel Wenblad, Director General of the Swedish Board of Fisheries, points to the small scale coastal fisheries in the eastern Baltic which for the last two years has been allocated 35% of the quota for cod leaving 65% for the trawler fleet. The allocation is flexible and can be changed in either direction

if it needs to be adjusted. The ob-jective was to increase the oppor-tunities for the small scale fleet as this is largely dependent on the cod fishery. Before the introduc-tion of this allocation the small scale sector was catching be-tween 20 and 25% of the quota, so the new rules have increased their share by over 10%. The increase in the TAC for cod in the Eastern Baltic by 15% has given grounds for cautious optimism. Sweden, says Mr Wenblad, is very keen that there should be absolutely no deviation from the management plan for 2010. A special concern has been a cod population in the

south eastern Kattegat which was in danger of being decimated. Sweden and Denmark took the initiative to introduce a no-take zone which was implemented late last year. The goal was to protect the cod population so that in the long term it would become a valu-able resource. The no-take zone is further subdivided into an all year no-take zone, another where only the use of selective gear is permit-ted, and a third where you have no take in the first quarter.

Vessels can be classified into the

following five groups

- Vessels less than 12 m that used only passive gear (nets, traps, and longlines)

- Shrimp trawlers where the catch volumes of shrimp amounted to at least 20% of the total annual catch

- Pelagic trawlers and seiners whose catch of pelagic fish (her-ring, sprats, sandeel, blue whit-ing, mackerel) amounted to at least 90% of the total annual catch

- Demersal trawlers that operate with trawls and target bottom

A plan for the mussel farming industry envisages increasing production to 10,000 tonnes from the current 1,200 tonnes.


Swedish landings of marine and freshwater fish by coast

Value (SKR thousand)) Volume (tonnes)

2008* 2007 2008* 2007

West coast 353462 392295 22878 29789

South coast 204332 227614 26543 30527

East coast 83716 84477 40691 39792

Swedish landings abroad

311199 380962 120273 131670

Total Swedish landings

952709 1085348 210385 231778

* Provisional figures

Source: Swedish sea-fisheries during December 2008, Fiskeriverket, 30 January 2009

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dwelling species such as cod, flat fish, shrimp, and nephrops

- Vessels over 12 m that fish only with passive gear

Decommissioning to restore balance between capacity and resources

The fleet is concentrated in the southern (Sydsverige) and south western (Västsverige) parts of the country which are homeports for 332 and 681 vessels respectively. The south eastern region (Smä-land) including the islands are the homeports for a further 152 ves-sels. There are about 300 landing sites and harbours dotted along the coast where fish is landed. The number of landing points means that the distance from the point of catch to the point of landing is reduced which is beneficial for the freshness and quality of the fish. The number of landing sites has however been falling as the number of fishing vessels has declined. The frequency of land-ing sites also varies from the east to the west coast as well as from north to south. Along the east coast there are fewer commercial fishers and they are more spread out so that developing common solutions to issues is more dif-ficult particularly in the north. In the Baltic demersal fishery the diversity of fleets precludes a one-size-fits-all solution. In the case of the Baltic Sea cod fishery a cap has been introduced on the number of licenses issued. In addition EFF funds have been used to scrap some of the largest trawlers in that segment in order to increase the profitability of the rest of the fleet. Mr Svenberg is optimistic that this will be enough to return the fleet to profitability particularly in view of the increased cod quota in the Eastern Baltic. A cap on licenses has also been introduced in the deepwater prawn (Pandalus bo-realis) fishery off the west coast.

In terms of the number of boats the biggest fishing ports are Fiske-bäck, Träslövsläge, Hörvik, Ham-burgsund, Havstenssund, and Simrishamn, while in terms of the value of landings the most impor-tant harbours are Simrishamn, Rönnäng, Smögen, Göteborg, and Västervik. The main fishing areas are the Atlantic, the North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat, and the Baltic and Oresund.

Traceability, a tool against illegal fishing

In response to the debate on black fishing in the Baltic and also on

Baltic Sea cod the Swedish Fish-ermen’s Federation has initiated a project called Närfisket that seeks to establishes traceability for all products. The system already has some 450 members who use the label. The idea is to provide de-tailed information on where the fishery has taken place, the name of the vessel, and the buyer, so that the whole production chain is documented. The project is still in the pilot phase so the volumes are small, but they are expected to increase over time. Traceability is mentioned in the European Com-mission’s green paper on the re-form of the CFP and it is likely that

systems such as Närfisket will be backed up by legislation demand-ing complete chain traceability of fish and seafood.

Swedish fisheries target mainly species under quotas laid down by the European Union. Of the nine main targeted species (cod, herring, sprat, mackerel, sandeel, nephrops, deepwater prawn, eel, and witch) that account for 90% of the catch, only eel and witch are outside the quota system. Ninety-five percent of the landed value is from species under quota of which cod, herring, sprats, neph-rops and shrimp, account for 75%. Swedish fisheries target 29 stocks comprising 12 different species from the North Sea to the Baltic. Catches in 2008 included about 55 different species with volumes of more than 1,000 tonnes and an-other fifty species where catches varied from 640 tonnes to less than 10 tonnes. Provisional figures for 2008 show that Swedish boats landed a total of 210,384 tonnes of fish worth SEK952.7m, while in 2007 the corresponding figures were 231,778 tonnes with a value of SEK1.086bn.

Management and conservation plans for fish stocks that have been introduced by the European Commission have had an impact on several segments of the Swed-ish fisheries fleet, reports the Swedish Operational Programme. These include plans for cod in the North Sea and the Baltic, as well as current and future plans for eel, salmon and pelagic species. The ban on drift nets led to the decom-missioning of vessels that special-ised in using this gear to target salmon. In addition to restrictions placed by management plans mandated by Brussels the fishery also has to contend with national legislation. This has restricted coastal fishery using trawls and purse seines and introduced nets

Evolution of the Swedish fleet vessels, tonnage and engine power

Year Number of vessels

Tonnage (GT*)

Average tonnage

(GT*)

Engine power (kW)

Average power (kW)

1997 2 342 52 325 22 251 955 107

1998 2 229 51 471 23 245 030 109

1999 2 073 50 431 24 236 343 114

2000 2 019 51 620 25 245 526 121

2001 1 902 50 191 26 240 280 126

2002 1 820 45 951 25 225 658 123

2003 1 733 44 915 25 222 610 128

2004 1 605 44 895 27 219 527 136

2005 1 599 44 249 27 218 844 136

2006 1 567 43 922 28 216 849 138

2007 1 530 43 325 28 213 930 139

Source: European Commission

Swedish marine catchesby region

Region ICES area Catch 2007

Catch 2006

Tonnes Percent Tonnes Percent

Atlantic Ocean IIa 0 0 44870 14

North Sea IVa, IVb 28304 12 48491 16

Skagerrak and Kattegat

IIIa 43854 19 50208 16

Baltic Sea and Oresund

IIIb, IIIc, IIId

164551 70 165934 54

Total 236708 100 309503 100

Source: Swedish sea-fisheries during 2007. Definitive data, Fiskeriverket, 19.06 07


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with larger meshes. Other rules place temporal and spatial limita-tions on purse seine fishing with lights. And fishing for eel, porbea-gle, and Norway lobster with traps has also been restricted.

Inland fishery thriving

Sweden has about 90,000 lakes of which the five biggest are Vän-ern, Vättern, Mälaren, Hjälmaren and Storsjön. Fishing licenses are mandatory to fish in the five large lakes but are voluntary in the others. Licensed fisheries ex-ist in the five large lakes as well as twenty-one in central Sweden and thirteen in the north of the

country. In the northern lakes as well as in Vättern the main species targeted are char and Coregonus spp, while pikeperch, pike, eel, and perch are hunted in the other lakes. In 2007 the most important species in the inland fishery were pikeperch, crayfish and eel, with values of SEK33.4m, 14.7m and 8.5m respectively. The total catch in 2007 was 1,546 tonnes with a value of SEK69m in comparison to 2006 when catch-es amounted to 1,642 tonnes valued at SEK72m. The Vännern was the most prolific lake both in tonnage and in value yielding 601 tonnes in 2007 valued at SEK18m. The bulk of the crayfish caught in

Swedish lakes came from the Vät-tern with 114 tonnes.

Catching and processing freshwater fish

In 2006 118 men and 7 women were licensed to fish in inland waters. Women are considered to be much better represented in the processing and sale of fish and fish products. It is estimated that at least half the processing opera-tions that add value to the catch are run by women, typically from within the family. The vessels used in inland waters are usually less than 12 m in size and many are too small for modern equip-

ment. The machinery on board is usually not more than devices for light handling and sorting of the catch, though some boats fishing on the Mälaren and Hjälmaren are equipped with winches.

Production value increasing steadily

The inland fishery has been in-creasing steadily over the years from 2001 when the total value was SEK35.8m to 2006 when it peaked at SEK71.8m, falling back slightly in 2007 to SEK69.2m. There has been a marked in-crease in the volumes of crayfish caught from 17 tonnes in 2000

Seafood is eaten in several forms in Sweden including fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, smoked and salted, as well as conserved.

The processing industry comprises both large operators with modern equipment and high volumes as well as smaller players that process fish they catch or culture themselves.

Farmed seafood for consuptionproduction in tonnes live weight

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Rainbow trout 4452 5255 4183 4886 4851 4968 6116 4366

Salmon 0 18 6 1 1 1 3 4

Eel 273 200 167 170 158 222 191 175

Arctic charr 395 786 608 324 328 439 444 374

Trout 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 5120 6259 4964 5381 5338 5630 6754 4919

Mussels 443 1444 1382 1742 1435 1069 1791 1168

Crayfish 7 6 6 7 6 6 5 3

Source: Fiskeriverket, Statistics Sweden

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to 134 tonnes in 2007 and a cor-responding increase in value from SEK2.3m to SEK15.5m over the same period. Almost all the crayfish is caught from the lake Vättern. One inland fishery, the Lake Hjälmaren pikeperch fish-eries, has been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the first Swedish and the first fresh-water fishery to be thus certified. Most of the production from this

fishery is exported to Germany, says Mr Wenblad, where there is a demand for large pike-perch. And these customers are willing to pay for this label of sustain-ability. Overall the inland fishery sector has been slowly restruc-turing over the last 15 years. The number of fishermen has halved, as older fishers have made way for a younger generation, and the profitability has increased.

Modest aquaculture production

The Swedish aquaculture sector is relatively modest compared to its Scandinavian neighbours, Denmark and Norway. Accord-ing to Eurostat while production in 2005 in Denmark and Norway was 39,000 tonnes and 657,000 tonnes respectively, it was just 5,880 tonnes in Sweden. This can partly be attributed to different geographical conditions; Sweden does not have the deep fjords seen in Norway and much of the country is icebound in winter. But Sweden has also several strengths on which to build, among them a long coastline and the pres-ence of over 95,000 lakes over a hectare in size. According to a recent study on the potential for the development of aquaculture in Sweden, many of these water bodies and reservoirs formed by the damming of rivers are have been depleted of their nutrients. Introducing aquaculture in these areas would increase the level of nutrients in the water.

Sweden has an aquaculture in-dustry that is predominantly in rural areas and that provides jobs to about 400 people (2007). The industry is spread over 100

of Sweden’s 290 communes and farms different species of fish and shellfish. Seafood is farmed for consumption, but also for re-stocking and for fishing tourism, with many farms producing fish for all three purposes. Some of the smaller farms (less than 50 tonnes per year) also process and sell their fish in order to diversify their activities In 2007 total food fish production was 4,900 tonnes live weight, while fish used for re-stocking water bodies amounted to a further 1,227 tonnes. The most widely reared species in Sweden is rainbow trout, which account-ed for 4,366 tonnes or 90% of the production of food fish. This rep-resents a decline of nearly 30% compared to the year before and is also about 10% lower than the average of the last eight years. The number of farms cultivating rainbow trout also declined from 83 in 2006 to 76 in 2007. Since 2003 the total number of farms (for food fish and restocking fish) has declined by almost 30% from 360 to 259 in 2007.

Arctic charr, a valuable potential product

In addition to rainbow trout the other major farmed species are Arctic charr, eel and mussels. Pro-

Swedish consumers can expect to see recommendations to eat fish three times a week.

Value of farmed seafood for consumptionin Million Swedish Kronar

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Rainbow trout 102,6 118,1 99,3 116,9 111,7 113,5 157,5 107,1

Arctic charr 15,3 20,7 24,7 14 13,7 19,2 20,4 17

Eel 14,5 12,9 10,4 11,1 11,3 17,3 16,2 14,5

Others 7,2 10,9 9,1 8,8 7 5,7 11,2 6

Total 139,6 162,6 143,5 150,8 143,7 155,7 205,3 144,6

Rainbow trout 102,6 118,1 99,3 116,9 111,7 113,5 157,5 107,1

Arctic charr 15,3 20,7 24,7 14 13,7 19,2 20,4 17

Eel 14,5 12,9 10,4 11,1 11,3 17,3 16,2 14,5

Others 7,2 10,9 9,1 8,8 7 5,7 11,2 6

Total 139,6 162,6 143,5 150,8 143,7 155,7 205,3 144,6


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duction of Arctic charr has fluc-tuated around about 500 tonnes over the last eight years reaching a high of 786 tonnes in 2001 and a low of 324 tonnes in 2003. Pro-duction of mussels has fluctuated more violently from a low of 443 tonnes in 2000 to a peak six years later of 1791 tonnes. These differ-ences in annual yields are partly due to periodic bans on harvest-ing. In 2007 production amounted to 1168 tonnes. Production of eel has remained the most constant hovering around 200 tonnes a year since 2001, with a production of 175 tonnes in 2007. The value of farmed seafood has remained fairly consistent over the years from 2000 to 2007. Rainbow trout showed a substantial fall from SKR160m in 2006 to SKR107m in 2007 a fall of 33%, but has other-wise fluctuated around SKR116m. Arctic charr, eel, and all the other species combined have averaged SKR18m 14m and 8m respectively, with minor variations over the years.

Scope for expanding aquaculture in the north

The study on the potential for aquaculture in Sweden finds that rainbow trout production has the potential to develop particularly in lakes that are poor in nutrients and Arctic charr farming could be expanded in the north of Swe-den. The document puts forward a thirteen point action plan that could lead to a total production of 50,000 tonnes a year and the crea-tion of up to 1,100 jobs primarily in rural areas, with a government investment of SKR60m a year for five years. A SWOT analysis of the sector carried out for the Strate-gic Plan for Fisheries 2007-2013 reveals several opportunities for the industry including favourable conditions for the culture of mus-sels and oysters on the west coast; the potential for the creation of

niche products; and the increasing interest in fishing tourism. Mus-sels produced off the west coast in

particular are considered to have a lot of potential. It would be pos-sible to grow them on ropes, says

Mr Wenblad, the water is clean, and there already is a produc-tion which we hope to increase. Mussel farmers are forming their own organisation which should also help in the marketing and sale and activities funded by the EFF to encourage mussel farming should bring about an increase in tonnage over time. In addition Sweden has sizeable local market to sell the production.

Space for both big and small processors

Seafood is eaten in several forms in Sweden including fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, smoked and salted, as well as conserved in different forms. The processing industry is dominated by a few large firms, but includes also several smaller com-panies that process fish they catch or culture themselves. For many of the smaller manufacturers process-ing the seafood they produce is a way of diversifying their activities and making them less vulnerable to downturns in fish production. The big industrial processors are equipped with modern equipment and have access to investment cap-ital. They also spend significantly on marketing and product devel-opment. These companies are not dependent on Swedish catches or aquaculture production for their raw materials, but import most of their needs.

Sales of fish and shellfish through retail outlets have risen between 2000 and 2007 from SEK7.4bn to SEK9.9bn, at current prices, an in-crease of 34.4%. Over the same pe-riod prices went up by no less than 25.7%, giving an actual increase in sales of 6.9%. Sales of fish and shellfish including fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, smoked, or salted seafood increased showed an 80% increase to SEK4.7bn, while sales of conserves increased by a more modest 9% to SEK5.2bn.

Professional freshwater fishing catches 2007 in tonnesSpecies of fish

Vänern Vättern Mälaren Hjäl-maren

Oth. lakes

Total

Salmon and brown trout

21 8 0 - 1 30

Char - 3 - - 3 6

Whitefish 111 5 0 - 2 117

Vendace 208 1 11 - 1 221

- of Vendace roe

12 - 1 - - 12

Pike 37 1 35 33 12 118

Pikeperch 111 0 188 166 72 537

Perch 43 4 9 74 11 141

Eel 19 - 41 20 31 111

Noble-/Signal crayfish

0 114 - 17 3 134

Other 50 10 3 1 66 131

Total 601 145 287 312 201 1 546


Development in freshwater fisheries

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32000

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64000

80000

Year

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2005 2006 20072000 2001 2002 2003 20041000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

YearSource: Fiskeriverket, Statistics Sweden


To meet domestic demand shellfish is imported from countries around the

world. One importer that has fo-cused on lobster is AB C Food run by Chris Wrisemo and his family. Mr Wrisemo has been importing lobster from Canada to supply the Swedish market since 1989. At the time a trade meant a consignment coming in to Arlanda airport, it had to be cleared through cus-toms, brought back to Stockholm

and then delivered directly to the customer. And this would hap-pen once a week. Gradually the frequency of the trips to the air-port increased as more custom-ers came in and six years later Mr Wrisemo built a holding tank fol-lowing the advice of some of his American suppliers. The 40,000 litre tank enabled him to store the lobsters allowing him greater flexibility in dealing with clients. This step also signalled the meta-

morphosis of the operation from a one-man-show into a proper company.

New facility built in 2006

In 2006 a new facility of about 1,400 sq. meters was constructed which included a state-of-the-art kitchen, and a holding tank with a capacity of 60,000 litres. The new kitchen facilitated the lobster boiling operation that began in

AB C Food a one-stop-shop for shellfish

High value shellfish for the Swedish marketSweden has a tradition of eating crayfish that dates back to the 16th century when it was a delicacy that only the aristocracy could indulge in. From the mid nineteenth century however the tradition of eating crayfish spread through society and today crayfish parties in the month of August are enjoyed by almost all Swedes. The taste for crayfish may even have played a role in creating a partiality for shellfish in general because from July and August and up to the end of the year Swedes consume not only crayfish, but also lobsters, crabs, oysters, scallops, and shrimp.

Chris Wrisemo, the owner of AB C Food, has been in the lobster trade since 1989.

Lobsters being prepared in the company kitchen. The water should be boiling well before the lobsters are placed in it.


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the mid-nineties following the re-quest from some clients. “Listen-ing to my clients only improves the service I can provide,” says Mr Wrisemo, “and ultimately it is the quality of the service as well as of the product that makes the com-pany stand out. We even offer to accommodate special requests from a client.” While the cooking has become more efficient, cool-ing the product is one stage in the process that needs to become more rapid, says Mr Wrisemo. He is looking for new and quicker process or technologies that will cool the lobster faster once it has been cooked. Once cooked the lobsters are delivered in the same flavoursome broth in which they are boiled. Once in a while the company receives a lobster that has suffered some damage in transit. These are cooked as usual, but then the meat is extracted manually to be sold separately.

In addition to lobsters the com-pany deals with crayfish, both the noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) which is native to Sweden and the signal crayfish Pacifastacus leni-usculus which was introduced to Sweden in 1969, according to the Swedish Museum for Natural His-tory. At the time the native noble crayfish was being decimated by a fungal disease to which the signal crayfish was resistant. While an-other species of crayfish that was also resistant to the disease, the spinycheek crayfish, was intro-duced into other parts of Europe, the taste of this crustacean was considered too different from that of the noble crayfish to be a suit-able substitute. The introduction of the signal crayfish continued into the 70s and the creature is now widespread in water courses throughout the country. The main commercial fishery for crayfish is from the Lake Vättern with a production of about 114 tonnes in 2007, and from the Lake Hjäl-

maren with a much smaller pro-duction of 17 tonnes.

Crayfish consumption has a long history

The historical role of crayfish in Swedish culture and the sensitiv-ity of the noble crayfish to some diseases as well as its lower fer-tility compared to signal crayfish prompted the authorities to in-troduce a ban on the import of all

live crayfish. For AB C Food this meant that they no longer could import live crayfish and cook them as they do for lobster. “We would prefer to cook the cray-fish ourselves rather than import the cooked product, as we are then fully in control of the proc-ess and know that it conforms to all Swedish requirements,” says Chris Wrisemo. Despite this the company still trades about 15 tonnes of crayfish in the season, which starts in mid July, peaks in

August and then falls in Septem-ber.

But with imports of 100 to 110 tonnes a year the company’s main product is lobster. They are imported pri-marily from USA and Canada in the late spring and summer months when the demand is high. In Can-ada the fishing area is divided into fishing districts which have dif-ferent though overlapping fishing periods. Lobster is caught by the

fisherman and then sold through a middle man to an exporter. The ex-porter needs to have the necessary permissions to export to Europe. This is only worth obtaining if you have the volumes, the packaging operations, and the logistics and also explains why an individual fisherman cannot export directly. The exporter also seasons the lob-ster, that is places the animal in tanks for three to four days so that it can get rid of any impurities in the system. The usual sizes are about

500 g, though the company also of-fers 750 g, 1 kg, and even up to 4-5 kg pieces on request!

Economic crisis begins to bite

As a high-value product demand for lobster has been affected by the economic crisis. But Mr Wrisemo saw the signs as far back as November last year when or-ders slowed down. In addition he has had to contend with a slump in the value of the Swedish kro-ner with respect to the dollar which has pushed up the prices of imports. The company has a solid reputation with its custom-ers which is standing it in good stead. Our customers know that when they order something from us they can rely on the product and the quality, says Mr Wrisemo, I am optimistic that things will change for the better soon.

The quality of the product is ulti-mately down to the supplier and after burning his fingers a couple of times in the beginning with suppliers who delivered soft-shell lobsters that have significantly less meat than the hard-shelled variety Mr Wrisemo has now settled on a few suppliers with whom he has been working for several years. It is the same with scallops which are imported from the US and crabs which come from Ireland and which are increasingly important products. In addition AB C Food is a significant importer of oysters, with suppliers in France and the Netherlands, while the latest prod-uct to be offered to customers is king crab from Norway.

By gradually increasing the range of shellfish it can offer its custom-ers AB C Food is working steadily towards its objective of becoming a one-stop-shop for all the shell-fish requirements a client might have.

The holding tank was built in 2006 and has a capacity of 60,000 litres

AB C Food SEPeder Smedhs Väg 12 S 12352 Farsta Sweden

Tel.: +46 70 5515151 Fax: +46 8 56680222 E-Mail: [email protected]

Owner: Mr. Chris Wrisemo Products: Lobster, scallops, crabs,

oysters, crayfishProduct forms:

Cooked lobster, freshMarket:

SwedenEmployees: 10Turnover: SEK40m

AB C Food SE Company Fact File


Market analysts note that demand for fish prod-ucts remains in place.

The overall demand for food prod-ucts among Russian consumers is changing from more expensive meat products to fishery prod-ucts which are less expensive and practically equivalent in terms of protein content. The share of im-ports in the fish sector is currently estimated at 37%, while in the meat sector the share of imports is slightly higher at 36-40% and in addition are more expensive per kg.

Seasonal factors of peak demand

have so far allowed the compa-nies and retail chains to maintain turnover at a satisfactory level. On the whole, the largest retail chains report that Russian consumers prefer to save on non-food items, and if saving on food, delicatessen products will be the first items to go. However, even if consumers save on some delicatessen pro-ducts, consumption of those pro-ducts will not be totally elimina-ted under any circumstances.

Within the fisheries sector, consu-mer demand is growing for pro-ducts in the lower-and medium price segment. Traditional pelagic species such as herring, mackerel and Alaska pollock are highly de-manded as are popular imported

New trends in the fisheries sector and on the market in Russia

Import substitution increases supplyThe Russian fisheries market today can be defined by its comparatively stable response to the effect of the world finance crisis and the import substitution oriented strategy initiated by the Russian government.

Fresh fish counter in one of hypermarkets in Moscow. Consumer demand for fish is stable, however, whereas retail chains report no significant change in demand for cheaper food products so far, the industry players observe a shift towards lower-and medium price segment products.

Example of herring supply on the Russian marketCatch, export and import dynamics of herring in January 08/09 in 1.000 t

0

10

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species like salmon and rain-bow trout. At the same time, the consumption of exotic fish, shell-fish, crustaceans and molluscs is experiencing a downturn trend.

According to new research conducted by the Comcon Agen-cy, the following percentage of Russian consumers chose “more careful consumption” of food products:

- Meat delicatessen products -43%,

- Sausages -40%,- Meat -38%, - Fish delicatessen products

-35%,- Cheese -30%, - Fish -30%,- Tobacco -9%,- Baby food -8%,- Baby care products -5%.

The survey interviewed 3,700 per-sons from 18 to 45 years between November 2008 and February 2009 in several Russian cities with a population of over 1 million inhabitants. The results of this research illustrate that meat deli-catessen products, sausages and other meat products are the first food items consumers will forego. Thirty-five percent of consumers were willing to shift from fish deli-catessen products in the premium price sector (very often it is sea-food preserves) to more afforda-ble fish products. When it comes to ordinary fish products (fresh and frozen fish), 30% of consu-mers were willing to consider sa-crificing them, whereas meat pro-ducts were indicated as “items for saving” by 41% of consumers.

Production and trade

In 2008 the national catch of fish amounted to 3.3 million tonnes, which is 2.7% lower compared to the year before. The main reasons for the decline were a sharp in-

crease in oil prices and the in-fluence of the world financial crisis with the consequent dete-rioration of the credit situation for fish companies.

Historically, for many years near-ly a third of the national annual catch was regularly exported to Asian markets directly from the Russian exclusive economic zone.

Catching companies were provi-ded better financial and logistical conditions for export abroad. This was in line with previous legisla-tion which allowed large volumes of catch to be exported without customs clearance in Russia. More than 90% of the export was made up of barely processed fish products and delivered directly from the area of catch.

Out of 3.3 million tonnes of fish caught in 2008, nearly 1.3 tonnes of fish were exported to South Ko-rea, China, Japan, Germany and EU markets.

While exporting large quantities of fish as raw material for further processing abroad on the one hand, Russia is highly dependent on imports in order to satisfy the


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growing demand of its population on the other. In 2008 Russian com-panies imported over one million tonnes of fish, but in contrast to the exports, imports consist of hi-ghly processed fish products from China, Norway, Vietnam and Eu-ropean countries.

In the past years, growing imports and exports have led to the situa-tion where the share of imported fish products on the market rea-ched 37% in 2008 in contrast with 24% in 2000. At present, the share of imported fish products even rea-ches 50% in some regions, especial-ly in the non-fish producing parts of the country, which means that every second or third kg of fish in the retail market is imported even if it could be of Russian origin (for example, Alaska pollock fillets).

Recent changes

As a large domestic market for fish products with an increasing dependency on imports, Russia is currently implementing an import substitution strategy through a transition from raw export-orien-

ted fisheries to innovation-orien-ted development and highly competitive domestic products and services. The year 2008 was unprecedented in terms of legal acts and rules aimed at improving the efficiency and profitability of the national fisheries sector and ensure a healthier financial situa-tion for Russian companies.

The most important measures for the industry can be summarized as follows:

1 Quota allocation (TAC) is pro-longed from 5 years up to 10 years;

2 Reduction of the number of

fishing species for which TACs are established;

3 Legislation rule as of January 1, 2009 on compulsory delivery of all fish caught in Russian Eco-nomic Zone and its territorial waters to customs territory of the Russian Federation;

4 Minimizing of administrative barriers in service of vessel at

sea ports; (in particular, waiting procedure in Russian ports de-creased to 3 hours from several days), tax and customs amnesty for fishing vessels;

5 Decision to subsidise loans is-sued to Russian fish companies for construction of processing facilities, boats; logistics; fi-nancing necessary state-own infrastructure, building fishing fleet for public companies and port facilities.

The first two regulations are aimed at providing fish compa-nies stability and more long-term perspective for resource plan-ning, whereas lessening of ad-ministrative barriers in Russian ports as well as tax and customs amnesty for fishing vessels will create more incentives for fish companies to deliver fish on the domestic market instead of ex-porting it. Focusing on produc-tion and trade issues, the adop-tion of the law for compulsory delivery of fish to the Russian ports has been very important for accurate statistics and regis-

tering of fish resources. Howe-ver, the new regulation does not mean a “full stop” for export, but declaring fish at the Russian cus-toms territory and then the com-panies can export it or distribute it to the domestic market.

This new law from January 1, 2009 has already resulted in chan-ges in catch and trade volumes. Russian fleets are beginning to turn to the Russian shores and re-orient themselves towards increasing catches of such spe-cies as herring, Alaska pollock, navaga and capelin for domestic supply.

As for the situation observed in January this year, the national catch amounted to 296.7 thou-sand tonnes against 188.3 thou-sand tonnes in the corresponding period in 2008. Production of fish at domestic processing factories reached 273.1 thousand tonnes in the first month of 2009, whereas it was registered at 206.1 thousand tonnes in January 2008.

Tendencies in fish trade in the beginning of 2009

The volume of exported fish in January 2009 went down by more than two times as the result of the new law and changing conditions for companies. While in January 2008 75.1 thousand tonnes of fish were exported, the figures for Ja-nuary 2009 were 31.5 thousand tones.

Customs statistics shows that im-ported volume of fish products in January 2009 also went down by 22% against the same period in 2008. Specifically, the catego-ries of crustaceans and molluscs showed the biggest decline both in volume and value terms.

Import of molluscs went down by 72% by volume and 55% by

A pattern of fresh fish assortment in one of Moscow supermarkets: sea bass, sea bream, mackerel and carp. The volume of imported fish reached nearly 37% in Russia in 2008.


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value in the first month of 2009 compared to the same month last year. Imports of crustaceans dropped by 70% in volume and 68% in value in the same period. The decline in those categories of commodities is attributed to the current downturn in demand for premium-price products in the retail and HoReCa sectors.

What is interesting is that imports of fresh and chilled fish increased by 30.7% in volume and 13% in value. At present, the share of this category in the overall fish import structure increased from 6.2% to 10%. The main growth of this category is caused by growing demand for fresh Norwegian sal-mon in Russia despite the econo-mic uncertainty. Overall, exports of salmon from Norway increased by 50% in the first month of 2009. However, if previously Russia was a big market for frozen salmon, fresh salmon is gaining pheno-menal importance. In January 2009, the share of fresh salmon was 81%.

Russian imports of commodity “frozen fish” went down by 24.7%

in volume and 17.7% in value as the result of the new rules on import-substitution. Herring is the dominant species in this commodity group, and since its import volume fell by 42% in Ja-nuary 2009 (compared to January 2008), the share of herring in fro-zen fish imports went down from 51% to 40%.

Decline of import volume in the same commodity of frozen fish has been observed for the fol-lowing species:

- Other frozen salmon*** – down by 62%,

- Other frozen fish – down by 58%,

- Frozen hake – down by 57%,- Frozen trout – down by 45%.

At the same time, imports of some species in the group of frozen fish experienced an increase:

- Frozen mackerel – up by 74%,- Frozen halibut – up by 74%,- Subgroup frozen sardine, sar-

dinella, anchovy – up by 33%,- Frozen Atlantic salmon – up by

15%.

Outlook for consumption

In general, while the global crisis has apparently diminished pur-chasing power resulting in lower demand for high-end price seg-ment imported products such as crustaceans and molluscs, it is forecast that the overall fish consumption in Russia will be stable and even increase over the next years.

In particular the Russian govern-ment actively supports the overall target of increasing fish consump-tion in the country, and especially consumption of fish products of Russian origin and production. One of the steps will be to esta-blish a common logistics chain for transportation and storage links for fish from the Russian ports to factories and the retail sector. Another practical solution is the construction of numerous “Ocean” stores which will dis-tinguish themselves from other retail stores by offering a price for fish products that is 25-50% lower by excluding the middle man in the value chain. The short-term forecast for catch is projected at

4.2 million tonnes in 2009 due to improved efficiency of the sec-tor. Since there will be more fish available on the market along with reduced exports, national fish consumption is expected to grow. But this growth will be attributed not as much to the in-creased imports as in the past de-cade, but to the bigger volumes of fish of Russian origin available on the market.

Katia Tribilustova, EurofishMarket Specialist

Statistical data provided by the Federal Agency for Fisheries of the Russian Federation have been used in this article.

*“Meat market is still dependant on imports”, www.rbc.ru, from January 19, 2009** Results of new research “Consequences of the Russian crisis – figures and emotions”, http://www.spbgid.ru/, from March 2, 2009*** Customs statistics does not identify individual species. “Other frozen salmon” includes various salmon species except Atlantic salmon

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At the top of the list of these Laws was, of course, the Constitution of the Rus-

sian Federation adopted in De-cember 1993. Then more Laws, crucial for the fishery manage-ment, such as the Federal Law on Fauna (no. 52-FZ of April 24, 1995), Federal Law on Conti-nental Shelf of the Russian Fed-eration (no. 187-FZ of November 30,1995), Federal Law on Inland Seas, Territorial Seas and Adja-cent Zone of the Russian Federa-tion (no. 155-FZ of July 31,1998)

and Federal Law on Exclusive Economic Zone of the Russian Federation (no. 191-FZ of De-cember 17,1998), followed.

Initial laws did not address the issues

However, the introduction of the above-mentioned Laws, as well as of few more (Federal Law on the Especially Guarded Natural Territories no. 33-FZ of March 14, 1995, Federal Law on Ecological Expertise no.174-FZ of November

23, 1995, and Federal Law on En-vironmental Protection no.7-FZ of January 10, 2002), adopted during the period from 1993 to 2003, did not help much in improving the situation in the Russian fishing industry that hardly endured the painful transition from a state-planned system of fisheries to a free market economy. The signs of a crisis were all too apparent. The annual catches declined, the fleet was getting obsolete. The country suffered huge financial losses due to illegal exports of fish.

Most of the fishermen, fishery ex-perts and general public laid the blame for the disorder and chaos in the fishing industry on the in-adequacy of the Russian legal mechanism and, in particular, on the absence of the country’s Fish-ery Law. Indeed, legislation re-lated to the fishery management was split between various new laws and regulations that often clashed, and that created prob-lems. Sometimes, it was very dif-ficult not only to find out who was responsible for what, but even to enforce the law. In the meantime, a special panel of experts, set up in 1994 and consisting of repre-sentatives of the fishing industry, scientists, lawyers and deputies of Russia’s lower house of parlia-ment (the State Duma), made a little progress in drafting a new fishery law. It took about 6 years for the above experts to work out a draft, which was acceptable to all members of the panel and, as such, eligible to be submitted to the State Duma for approval. And in September 2000 it did pass the third reading in the Duma.

First draft law vetoed in upper house

After several years of heated de-bate and discussions, endless changes and amendments, the draft law was at last adopted by the lower house of parliament, and for experts it was a victory which they planned to celebrate. However, according to the exist-ing rules, a draft law adopted by the Duma had still to go to

New laws reduce dependence on imports

The evolution of fishery legislation in RussiaAfter the break-up of the USSR the Russian Federation inherited very scarce legislation related to fisheries. Worth mentioning are the Law on Sea Waters adjacent to the USSR coast and Law on Exclusive Economic Zone, adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet in December 1976 and February 1984 respectively. However, not one of the Soviet legal acts, which had anything to do with conservation and fishery management, could have been easily adapted to the new reality. So the law-making work had to be done from scratch. Some of the most important legal norms and regulations were drafted and became law during the first few years after the foundation of the Russian Federation.

New laws have made it mandatory to clear through Russian customs all the fish caught in Russia’s coastal waters, on the continental shelf, in territorial seas, and the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation.

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the upper house (the Council of Federation), where it might be defeated or passed with or with-out amendments. To the great disappointment of all parties, the Council of Federation vetoed the ill-fated draft. The difficult work of law-making had to be started all over again. This time it took not six but only three years to prepare the new draft. It passed the third reading in the Duma on Novem-ber 26, 2004 and then went to the Council of Federation, where it was approved on December 08 the same year. After its final pas-sage by both houses the law was sent to the then President Putin who signed it on December 20, 2004.

Several amendments to new Law

Unfortunately, the long-awaited Law, which was entitled “On Fishery and Conservation of Aquatic Biological Resources” and registered under the num-ber 166-FZ, did not make a life easier for all those engaged in the fishing industry of the Russian Federation. It had many imper-fections, some important defini-tions, for example, that of “the coastal fishery”, were missing. It became obvious that the new Law needed additional amend-ments and clarifications. During the years 2004-2008 seven new federal laws were adopted each one containing amendments to the basic Law no.166-FZ. It must also be mentioned that one more Federal Law no. 74-FZ “Water Code of the Russian Federation” was adopted in June 2006, thus completing the full set of nine basic federal laws related to the fishery management. As a matter of fact, some of them (not only the Fishery Law) needed amend-ments and changes too. And the Committee of Fisheries of Russia (reorganized now into the Federal

Agency) was and still is very busy making new drafts. Thus, about twenty-five drafts related to the fishery were worked out and be-came law in 2008. In addition to the above mentioned nine federal laws (mentioned above and iden-tified by their state registration numbers) there are also various Decrees issued by the President and numerous Resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation. All these legal acts together provide the legal basis for the present system of fishery management in Russia.

Recent regulations

A detailed analysis of the present fishery legislation of the Russian Federation could form the subject of a separate study. Due to the limited format of this article only the most important regulations adopted recently are listed below:

- Along with the nuclear industry, arms production and sale, aero-space, geological prospecting, oil and gas exploration and pro-duction, Russia’s fishing indus-

try is designated a strategic sec-tor of the country’s economy;

- Fish products produced in Rus-sia are subject to obligatory cer-tification;

- Quota auction sales have been cancelled. They are replaced by a quota shares allocation sys-tem for the period of 10 years. A special tender procedure is designed in order to prevent middlemen ( private compa-nies as well as individual en-trepreneurs) obtaining fishing quotas for further reselling (as was the case in the past);

- The fishing grounds (in coastal fisheries and in the rivers) are provided to the traditional us-ers for 20 years’ period;

- Mandatory custom clearance of all the fish caught in Russia’s coastal waters, on the conti-nental shelf, in territorial seas and the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation is introduced. This clearance is to be effected in Russian ports;

- Catches of fish, caviar and various valuable sea creatures (crabs etc.) confiscated from poachers must be destroyed

by either being buried in the earth, or burned down in a fire, or dumped at sea;

- Increased number of species of less-valued and under-exploit-ed fishes, such as gobies (Gobi-dae), greenlings (Hexagrammi-dae), navaga (Eleginus navaga), wolffishes (Anarchichadidae), flounders, etc., may be caught on a quota-less basis.

In conclusion it must be said that law-making in Russia is an ever-lasting and never-ending process. Things are changing so fast now that from time to time new laws and/or additional amendments to existing ones are needed. Pres-ently, the most urgent legal act, awaited impatiently by fisher-men, is a law on aquaculture, which is yet to be worked out and adopted.

Georgy Zaytsev

Russia’s fishing industry has been designated a strategic sector of the country’s economy alongside the nuclear industry, arms production and sale, aerospace, geological prospecting, and oil and gas exploration and production.

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La Marée is one such com-pany that is exploiting the demand for high-value

fish and seafood products in the up-market restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets. Run by Me-hdi Douss, the president, and Khurshed Shaimov, the general manager, the company is the largest importer of fresh seafood in Moscow serving restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets in the Moscow area as well as region-ally with speciality gourmet foods and high quality seafood sourced from around the world. The company was established in 1988 and has since established three sales offices, in Saint Pe-tersburg, Ekaterinburg and So-chi, from where it supplies the

regions. In addition the company is developing its own processing facilities in the Russian Far East

which will use the local fish and seafood as raw material for the production.

All deliveries by flight

To ensure freshness and rapid delivery all the company’s prod-ucts are flown in from the source countries. Once they arrive in Moscow they are cleared through customs, brought to the company warehouse and are delivered to the customer all within the space of a few hours. The product is very fresh when it arrives says Khur-shed Shaimov, from the time we place the order to the time the product arrives at our warehouse it typically takes three days if it is farmed product and four if it is wild. It takes an additional day to deliver it to the customer if the order has first to be flown to one of the regional offices. Shipments come in on a daily basis from some of the twenty-two countries from where the products are trans-ported. These include Canada, the US, Chile, several countries in Europe, Morocco, Tunisia, Oman, Thailand, and Australia. The fish and seafood is from capture fish-eries as well as aquaculture, in fact about 70% of all the products received are farmed as this is the only way to ensure a stable supply as well as consistent sizes. Besides global production of farmed fish is growing much faster than capture fisheries, so before long it may not be viable to import wild fish. In to-tal each month the company im-ports about 180 tonnes of fresh fish and about 9 tonnes of live shellfish such as lobster and crab. Sea bass and sea bream are among the main products that are imported. These are sourced in Cyprus, Spain, and Tunisia. Formerly they were also imported from Greece, but that trade has now ceased. La Marée also owns a sea bass and

La MaréeVolgogradski Prosp. 32/3 RUS 109316 Moscow Russia Tel.: +7 495 775 14 61/70 Fax: +7 495 775 14 61 [email protected] www.lamaree.ru

President: Mr. Mehdi DoussGeneral Manager:

Mr. Khurshed Shaimov Products: Imports of over 900

fresh fish, seafood, and live

shellfish products; fish and seafood from Russian Far East; processed products for export

Volumes: 180 tonnes of month of fish, 9 tonnes a month of live shellfish

Markets: Hotels, restaurants, supermar-kets in Moscow and the regions

Offices: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Sochi

Employees: 150Turnover: USD285m

La Marée Company Fact File

La Marée sources fish and seafood from around the world

High value seafood for discerning customersThe growing middle class in Russia reflecting the increasing prosperity in the larger cities also offers a number of new opportunities for enterprising business people and entrepreneurs. The newly affluent constitute a relatively recent market in Russia that is increasingly being served by locally generated products and services that are world class.

Andrei Krayniy, chief of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, visiting the La Marée facilities.


russia

sea bream farm in Tunisia. The farm is small but growing and the company plans to diversify pro-duction to include Dover sole and bluefin tuna. In connection with the farm La Marée is also consid-ering establishing a processing plant for the production of value-added products.

Diversifying into exports of Russian seafood

Russian consumers have also de-veloped a taste for blue fin tuna which is currently being imported from Japan not fresh, but super-frozen to below minus 60 degrees centigrade. The product is expen-sive and La Marée is trying now to cut costs by buying the necessary equipment in Germany and Japan to superfreeze the product itself at its warehouse. We expect this to be a more economical way of get-ting the same product, explains Mr Shaimov. While the focus so far has been on importing fish and seafood for distribution on the local market the company is also getting into the export business, in this case ex-porting Russian seafood to markets in Europe. The products such as cod, king crab and other shellfish are procured from the ends of the country, from Murmansk and from Sakhalin and frozen for export. The

advantage of trading with Russian seafood says Mr Shaimov, is that prices are very competitive, the volumes are large and the product is available all the time.

Crisis causes switch to cheaper species

The economic crisis has had an im-pact on the company’s operations. We notice that restaurants are stocking more of the cheaper vari-eties of fish, explains Mr Shaimov, and we have responded by buying

where the product is cheaper. For example, sea bass we no longer get from Morocco, but instead obtain it from other countries. We may also start trading with pelagic fish which is something we have not done up to now. The company is also diversifying from being a pure trader to starting to pro-cess products. It has invested in a warehouse in the Russian Far East and also buys processing equip-ment for the production of value added products based on locally obtained raw material. In addition

La Marée has its own restaurant in Moscow that has twice been nom-inated as the best restaurant in the Russian Federation.

Being the best has always been the mission of the company. It has meant concentrating on op-erations to ensure the quickest deliveries of the highest quality, and offering very high levels of flexibility and service. This dedi-cation has earned La Marée the award of best seafood provider in Russia not once but seven times.

Fish is imported from around the world and brought to the La Marée warehouse for delivery to the restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets in Moscow and the regions.

La Marée was among the first to import live lobsters, crabs, and oysters into Russia.

A fleet of delivery vans distributes the production quickly and efficiently.


Within the group the Russian member Gulf-stream is clearly the

largest taking 100,000 of the 170,000 tonnes of fish that was bought in 2007. While Salas Zivis has existed since the early 90s, Gulfstream joined in 2001. The advantages of being part of the group extend beyond the ben-efits of reduced prices for volume purchases. Arthur Stetsenko the owner of Gulfstream explains how members of the group insure each other if prices suddenly fall on one market due to a glut of fish. In such a case a consignment of fish will be taken over by another

member of the group for sale on that member’s market. Fish des-tined originally for the Ukrainian partner for sale on the Ukrainian market could be diverted to Rus-sia if for some reason a surfeit of fish on the Ukrainian market re-sults in prices falling. The Russian partner, Gulfstream, will then sell the fish at the higher price prevail-ing on the Russian market. This arrangement brings mutual ben-efits to the partners in the group.

Pacific Ocean is the Gulfstream brand

Gulfstream both imports and exports fish as well as processes fish under its own brand Pacific Ocean. Products sold under this label are exclusively designed for the Russian market. Among the products manufactured are fillets of white fish, and red caviar which are sold to the local supermarkets, but the company offers a range of about 250 fresh and frozen prod-ucts. Within Gulfstream different companies are responsible for dif-ferent functions – one deals with logistics and transport, which is organised using a fleet of thirty-five trucks, yet another handles sales to the hotels, restaurant and catering sectors as well as to re-tailers, the production company is called Pacific Ocean like the brand and Gulfstream itself is a separate entity that functions as a wholesaler for the whole country.

Some non-fish products also being traded

The group currently deals only with fish, but the economic crisis has forced the management to re-appraise their priorities and one of the changes expected is the ap-

Gulfstream to focus more on the retail sector

Making the most of the economic crisisThe Salas Zivis group comprises four companies, one each from the Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have combined their purchasing operations in order to benefit from economies of scale. With annual purchases of about 200,000 tonnes a year of mainly pelagic fish the combined buying power of the group members is enough to place pressure on the sellers.

Frozen shrimp is imported and repackaged for retail consumers.

Canned salmon caviar is one of the products produced under the Pacific Ocean brand.

For saleFish processing plant situated in the eastern part of Hungary, EU registration number, full equipment, technology and market background.

For further information contact: [email protected];

tel.: +36 30 5776355 (English, German, Romanian)


russia

pearance of non-fish products in the assortment. After conducting a survey of the regional whole-salers who form their customer base Gulfstream discovered that 60-70% of them were also dealing with several non-fish products. As a result the company will initially introduce french fries and poultry, but in a short time it also expects to start trading meat and possibly also vegetables. Pacific Ocean, the production wing of Gulfstream was established with the aim of dealing with the supermarkets. As a wholesaler Gulfstream was working with blocks and this product form is not suitable for the retail segment that needs dif-ferent kinds of products, packag-ing, and sizes. The main product currently being manufactured by Pacific Ocean is salmon caviar in cans, but the company plans to move into marinated products based on herring and other spe-cies, as well as chilled fillets made from salmon and trout imported from Norway. Right now this fish is imported gutted and is sold di-rectly to supermarkets. Norway is the only country from which Gulf-stream imports chilled product, everything else is imported frozen from several countries round the world – Australia, New Zealand, South America, the EU and the US.

Following in the partners’ footsteps

Arthur Stetsenko, the owner of

Gulfstream, considers his Latvian partners in Salas Zivis as the pio-neers in the group. They initiate new ways of dong business which

we then copy. They may be the smallest in size but they make in-novative use of modern technol-ogy to communicate better or to make business processes more efficient, he says, that is why they are the first to have achieved what each member of the group is try-ing to achieve which is to become a vertically integrated company supplying from the catch to the table. Like its Latvian partner, Gulfstream, through its produc-tion company, is also planning to move into greater value addition such as smoked products and marinates. These plans have not been derailed by the economic crisis which has hit most other companies in the sector, on the contrary says Mr Stetsenko it has made us more focused and more efficient. The company was forced to retrench about a third of its la-bour force, but then invested in machinery that made them more efficient. The goal now is to proc-ess 100% of the imports and then supply the customers with the processed products. This is quite a different philosophy to the one that dominated when the compa-ny started. Then it was about the wholesale sector, large volumes and low prices, while today it is much more about high quality, value addition and good service for the retail branch.

Gulfstream GroupPaveletskaya Neb. 2, bldg.7, of. 603 RUS 115114 Moscow Russia Tel.: +7 495 258 91 58 Fax: +7 495 258 91 58 [email protected]

Owner: Mr. Arthur Stetsenko

Main products: Over 250 fish and seafood products, canned caviar, whitefish fillets

Volumes: 100,000 tonnesMarkets: Wholesale sector

throughout Russia, retailers in Moscow

Brand: Pacific OceanEmployees: 300Turnover: USD250m

Gulfstream Group Company Fact File

Frozen fish in retail packaging for supermarkets. Gulfstream wants to focus increasingly on the retail sector.

Gulfstream has a subsidiary company Intercargo that is responsible for transport and logistics.


Own research centre tests alternative feeds Coppens is based in the Netherlands and has been producing animal feeds since 1926. A subsidiary, Coppens International, which was founded in 1993 has specialised in the production of fish feed. Coppens Interna-tional develops, produces and sells fish feed for aquaculture, for ornamental fishes in ponds and aquariums, and since recently also special bait for sport anglers.

The feeds are produced using the latest ex-truder production techniques in one of the most modern feed mills in Europe. Every stage of production from raw materials pro-

Viewed on the surface, German aquac-ulture might not seem as attractive as other countries for big feed producers.

With an annual production of about 23,000 t trout, plus some eel, catfish, sturgeon and a few other species the industry’s feed re-quirements can be very roughly estimated at hardly more than 35,000 t of intensive feed per year. In that respect it was a surprise to find three feed producers exhibiting at last year’s Eurotier in Hanover. And they were all not so much interested in doing business, but more interested in showing their colours, talking to and discussing with old customers and potential new customers. They wanted to inform Eurotier visitors about current product ranges and draw their attention to new developments in the feed sector. At one

stand we were told that Germany was a very discerning market for feed suppliers, and that German fish farmers were very critical. It was only possible to survive in Germany in the long run if the products, the price and the service offered were right. Jeroen van Stokkom, the Commercial Director of Cop-pens International, even credits German fish farmers with having a kind of “test function”: a supplier whose products are successful with these customers shouldn’t have any problems elsewhere in Europe, he says. On no other market did the company get such frank, direct feedback from the farmers. And that didn’t only hold true for criticism but also for acknowledgement. Both were impor-tant in order to be able to constantly improve performance.

High feed quality despite different raw materials

Raw materials for fish feed have shown a ten-dency to increase strongly over the past few years. To stop feed prices getting out of hand the feed producers have to react flexibly to the changing market situations and start looking for suitable alternatives for fishmeal and fish oil. This could be quite a balancing act: the raw materials have to be available and remain affordable, whilst at the same time the feeds have to guarantee good growth of the fishes without any negative impacts on the flavour or health value of the products. The fact that feed producers are capable of meeting and master-ing these challenges could be seen very clearly at Eurotier.

Hans Wilhelm Jenk (Sales Manager Germany,), Jeroen van Stokkom (Director Marketing and Sales), Uwe Trauner (Feed Sales Aquaculture Germany). Coppens International has specialised in the production of fish feed.

Feed industry displays its wares at Eurotier 2008

Environmentally friendly feeds for good growth and healthy fishesFeed is decisive for success in aquaculture: the growth and health of the fishes depends on the quality of the feed, and feed accounts for the major share of production costs. How global aquaculture will develop in future also depends strongly on the extent to which it will be possible to produce alternative feeds. That is why it was particularly pleasing to see three well-known feed producers exhibiting at Eurotier in 2008. Also on display: interesting technology for fish feeding systems.

aquaculture

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curement to the packaging of the finished products is registered and controlled. Cop-pens produces extrudate of all kinds of feed from high-quality crumble starter diets to 20 mm special growth feeds. They sell both sinking and floating extruded granules and pellets and even pressed pelleted products. Altogether, the current range comprises about 300 kinds of feed for six fish species, in-cluding trout, sturgeon, catfish, tilapia, carp and marine species. All the feeds supplied by Coppens are their own developments which were mainly achieved through close co-operation with fish farmers. The company works constantly on the further development of existing products as well as on new feeds. Coppens has a 13 hectare pond facility and a generously dimensioned recirculation plant in which most of the tests are carried out.

In addition, Coppens has its own research facility, the Coppens Research Centre (CRC) which focuses both on nutritional aspects and production techniques in fish farming and on new feeds. CRC is as such the basis and the guarantor that feeds from Cop-pens are always among those that dictate the state of the art in aquafeed. Among the most important research tasks at present is the question of the extent to which fishmeal and fish oil can be substituted by vegetable proteins and oils without compromising per-formance. CRC is testing the latest extrusion and coating techniques.

Fish feeds from Coppens are exported to about 40 countries. In addition to Western Europe which is one of the company’s tradi-tional sales areas, Eastern Europe and partic-ularly Russia is now playing an increasingly important role. Coppens International is also very successful in Africa with its catfish feed.

Feed for a good 25 fish species in 50 countriesThe Biomar Group is currently the world’s third biggest producer of feeds for aquacul-ture. Following the takeover of Provimi Aqua in 2007 Biomar now produces about 700,000 t of feed per year in seven countries, includ-ing Denmark, Norway, UK and Chile. The feeds are mainly for salmon and trout but

also for a number of other fish species. The range comprises feeds for nearly 25 fresh-water and marine fish species including two species that are fairly new in aquaculture: cod and halibut. Altogether Biomar supplies feed to fish farming companies in about 50 different countries.

Biomar has a test station in Hirtshals in the north of Denmark where it carries out ex-periments in close co-operation with other regional research institutes (Aalborg Uni-versity, DIFRES, North Sea Museum, SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture). The station has eight indepen-dent units which altogether have 96 tanks in sizes of 350 l to 3,500 l plus a range of highly devel-oped aquariums for digestibility tests. New feeds are tested there, fish growth ex-periments car-ried out, and the feed examined for digestibility and flavour. The

researchers also investigate the possible ef-fects of aquafeed on the environment. Car-rying out the experiments at the test station has the advantage that they take place under standardised conditions and this leads to a better comparability than if the tests were carried out in regular fish farming facilities. Fish farmers can be sure that all new feeds have been thoroughly tested by Biomar be-fore they are launched onto the market.

Fish farmers can also benefit in a different way from the Biomar specialists’ technical expertise. On its Internet homepage www.

Jens Peter Martensen (Export Manager) and Irmgard Lorenzen (Marketing Coordinator). Biomar does not only offer fish feed but supports fish farmers with a broad spectrum of information.


aquaculture

biomar.dk the company offers a section called “Know-how” with very comprehensive infor-mation material on nearly all aspects of fish farming, divided under the headings Feed & Nutrition, Feeding, Water Quality, Farming Technology, Fish Health and Biology. The information ranges from basic knowledge of water chemistry to various feeding problems, physiology and fish diseases, plus technical equipment for aquaculture. The section Fis-hAndCook is also interesting and very help-ful. Here, Biomar is building up the world’s largest trout cookery book on the web. Visi-tors can add their own suggestions to the collection of recipes and contribute towards strengthening the image of trout as a healthy, tasty fish.

Highly digestible pea protein for quality feedsEmsland-Aller Aqua, a new producer of high-quality fish feed, is a joint venture be-tween Emsland-Stärke GmbH and Aller Aqua Technology APS. The Emsland Group is one of the world’s leading producers of plant-based starches and high-quality plant proteins. This means that the company not only has great experience and but also par-

ticularly favourable prerequisites for the substitution of fishmeal with agricultural raw materials. Aller Aqua has been developing and producing feeds for numerous fish spe-cies for over 40 years. The current product portfolio comprises about 50 kinds of feeds in various pellet sizes for salmonids, catfish, carp, bass, zander, sturgeon and other spe-cies. Fish feed from Emsland-Aller is used in over 30 countries. Well-known, successful brands like Aller Aqua and Aquavalent will be continued in the future, too.

With the construction of Europe’s most mod-ern fish feed factory in Golßen, Emsland-Aller Aqua has set the course for the future. The main source of protein used is peas, al-together about 36,000 tonnes per year. The company claims that there are currently only two producers in Germany who are capable of supplying pea protein in the quality of the Golßen protein which can constitute an ad-equate substitute for fishmeal in fish feed.

In the new fish feed factory pea protein, wheat, soy meal, rapeseed, fishmeal, fish oil and soy oil are processed to high-quality fish feed with the help of the latest machines and modern extruder technology. The central location in Germany and the co-operation with German logistics companies enable

Emsland-Aller Aqua to react flexibly to cus-tomer wishes and also make reliable deliver-ies at short notice.

Manager Gerhard Ettner was very satisfied with the company’s participation in Eurotier in Hanover. The integration of aquaculture in the agriculture-oriented Eurotier was a very fortunate symbiosis which had drawn a lot of visitors to Hanover. The superior lecture programme of the Aquaculture Forum had naturally contributed towards this, too. Nu-merous of the company’s regular customers and prospective new customers had used the opportunity to gain information directly at the stand on the range of feeds available and on further developments.

Perfect feeding systems for fish farmingSchauer, the Austrian producer of barn and feeding systems exhibited the automatic fish feeding system Spotmix in Hanover. With this central feeding system it is for the first time possible to mix both tiny feed quantities (e.g. for hatcheries) for distribution to the tanks as required and to supply the desired volumes and feed sizes to more remote ponds. The automatic feeding system weighs the feed quantities to an accuracy of 10 grams, mixes the stipulated feed components exactly in the batch mixer and subsequently distributes the individual portions among the various loca-tions using compressed air - all computer controlled. The feeding points can be up to 800 m from the central feeding facility.

This kind of plant was admittedly not cheap but it paid off within a relatively short time, Sales Manager Manfred Andessner assured us at the company stand in Hanover. Based on a fish stock of 70 t it was possible to save up to 30,000 euros on feed and labour costs within one year. Several acknowledged fish producers already used such feeding systems in Germany.

Andessner named numerous advantages in favour of the central feeding system. The central feed depot could be outside the ac-tual fish farming facility, for example, so that trucks did not have to drive up to the ponds

Managing Directors Gerhard Ettner and Alexander Tautenhahn. With the construction of the modern fish feed factory in Golßen, Emsland-Aller Aqua has set the course for the future.

when delivering. This considerably reduced the risk of introducing diseases to the farm. Apart from that it was possible to use the feed directly from big bags which made handling much easier and reduced friction losses dur-ing feed transport.

The computer controls ensured that feed-ing was carried out slowly and regularly and that the feed was adapted to the tempera-ture and other environmental conditions. Every feeding point could be supplied in-dividually with the required feed mixtures (e.g. with added astaxanthin components). Daily growth, water temperatures and ad-ditional oxygen enrichment are automati-cally considered during calculation of the feed quantities. Independent of the staff situation, weekends, public holidays or va-cations the fishes get exactly the right feed every day.

Sales Manager Manfred Andessner. The automatic feeding system Spotmix enables higher daily growth with lower staff input.


The objective of the meeting was to learn of the results from a project on cleaning

technology in recirculation plants, where people from the waste water industry have been involved. Waste water treatment is very well devel-oped in Denmark, because, thanks to the focus on the environment in the country, several years have been spent on research in the field. The aim is to transfer this knowl-edge to the recirculated aquacul-ture business and several opportu-nities have been identified.

Recirculating systems require more skills

Converting from traditional fish farming to recirculated farms calls for new skills from the farm manager. Besides controlling the farm production as usual, the new recirculation technique involves control of the new equipment, especially the management of the bio-filter. A bio-filter should be considered a living organism that demands a steady supply of nutri-tious water to function optimally.

The surface area of the bio-filter should only have a thin layer of bio-film. Thick layers will enable anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that do not require oxygen) to produce unwanted substances that in the end may damage the fish.

More automated bio-filters are on the market today, but they are large and costly and they still need a lot of work and supervision to work properly. Purifying plants today are far more automated and the providers of the plant will ac-tually guarantee the unit’s clean-ing capacity. That is definitely not the case in the aquaculture busi-ness, where the actual capacity in practise is more or less at the buy-er’s own risk.

For recirculation technology, much more research and devel-opment is necessary to reach the same level of expertise available today in the waste water industry. The challenge is not exactly the same, but similar solutions can be utilised. Once the bio-filter tech-nology in the aquaculture sector has become more developed it will become a commodity product as it is in the waste water industry.

aquaculture

Recirculation technologists seek inspiration from waste water treatment

Cheaper, more efficient technologies possibleDevelopment more effective bio-filters and work on reducing costs were among the main conclusions of a recent meeting organised by the Danish aquaculture network “Aquacircle” in Silkeborg, Denmark. Attending the event was a unique combination of aquaculture producers, equipment providers and researchers, who discussed the current status and development possibilities for the aquaculture sector.

The meeting was particularly useful as it attracted participants from the farming industry, researchers and equipment manufacturers.

A cluster of Danish companies for the development and promotion of recirculation technologies.

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Exciting results from model fish farms

The discharge of polluted water in to the environment is the ma-jor obstacle to increasing aqua-culture production in Denmark. During the past three years, trials have been made on eight model fish farms, where recirculation and bio-filter technologies have been tested. The results gathered from the model farms show a very high rate of purification of the dis-charge water (see figure)

The technology of recirculation on the model fish farms is based on the use of ground water rather than water from a river. This has a positive side effect in that it pre-vents river-transmitted diseases and pollution from entering the farm.

Prospects for the future develop-ment in recirculation aquaculture were discussed by all speakers. The development forecast is di-vided into several parallel areas and were presented both by pri-vate companies and research in-stitutions. The discussion is sum-marised below.

Prospects for future development

Investment reductions:- Use of standard circular tanks

- Optimised construction of the plants

- Reduction in the size of bio-fil-ters

Energy reductions:- Reduced electricity consump-

tion using more effective water pumps and other equipment

Pollution reductions:- More automated and standard-

ised bio-filters- A guaranteed bio-filter perform-

ance given by the suppliers- Less or no waste water- Effective sludge treatment- Increased removal of nitrogen

Fish welfare: - Increased water quality- Integrated possibility to add

oxygen- Improved control of deseases

Promising future for the advanced recirculation

aquaculture plants

The future looks promising for advanced recirculation aquacul-ture production if the present op-timisation of the technology con-tinues. Current public regulation in Denmark aims at accepting a larger land-based aquaculture production and more discharged

nitrogen. A larger discharge is subject to the proviso that the dis-charged nitrogen per produced kilogram of fish is reduced by at least 40%. Under this proviso the current total annual discharge of nitrogen from Danish land based aquaculture production can in-crease from 600 to 1,200 tonnes.

Denmark’s total nitrogen dis-charge is 450,000 tonnes per year of which the agriculture industry is responsible for the largest con-tribution.

Another issue is fresh water consumption. At present one kilogram of beef uses 16,000 litres of water and one kg trout uses 400-500 litres in recircula-tion aquaculture.

With further development of the present technology a recirculat-ing aquaculture plant will be able to reduce water consump-tion to 40-50 litres per kilogram of fish produced.

In light of climate changes that give reduced rainfall in some ar-eas, recirculating aquaculture is the future production method where both water and discharged nitrogen are reduced drastically compared with other ways of producing food.

Marco Frederiksen, Eurofish

Purification of discharge waterPercentage of impurities removed

The results gathered from the recirculated aquaculture plants tested show the possibility to purify the discharge water to the values pictured above (net values)

0

25

50

75

100

NH4-N Total N Total P BOD COD

BOD

= B

iolo

gica

l oxy

gen

dem

and

COD

= C

hem

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dem

and


It is open to dispute whether cod really did change the world. What is, however, indis-

putable is the fact that the world has changed cod or to be more exact the condition of numerous Atlantic cod stocks. This has been the case particularly over the past few decades in which pressure from fisheries grew so much that some cod stocks are in the mean-time below safe biological limits. This limit defines the minimum biomass that is necessary in or-der to maintain the stock at the desired (commercially utilizable) level. During the past 50 years the annual cod catches in the North Atlantic have fallen from an av-erage 2.5 to 3 million tonnes to quantities considerably below 1

New series

Cod from NorwegiaN aquaCulture

A well-known fish species in a new qualityWars were waged on account of cod, islands were discovered, and settlements developed over large areas of North America... or so it says in the blurb of Mark Kurlansky’s book “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World”. It could be that the title is piling it on a bit but the role that this fish species has played over the course of many centuries can hardly be estimated highly enough. The cod fishery has fed sheer millions of people – and not only in northern countries of the globe. Dried and salted cod products were already traded between countries and continents at a time when the word “globalisation” had not yet been invented. Cod influenced the development of the regions where it originated as no other fish species has done; throughout whole regions the size and quality of the cod catches determined whether a community would enjoy prosperity or suffer adversity. But then, as now, this fish is above all one thing: a high-quality, healthy, tasty and thus rightfully highly appreciated food.


m t. According to FAO statistics, the total volume of legally caught cod in the year 2006 amounted to only 823,482 t. The possible con-sequences of excessive fishing on this fish can clearly be seen off the east coast of North America where about 1.5 m t of cod were caught every year during the 1960s. The annual catch has now fallen to a meagre 40,000 t.

Worldwide desire for cod has not lessened these developments – but where can the fish come from if we don’t catch enough any more? Aquaculture offers itself as a solution to the problem since, similar to salmon, trout or tilapia cod can also be produced on farms. In some respects cod

is even more suited to farm production than salmon, as initial tests in Norway, Canada and the UK have shown. This fact aroused hopes but – as we know today – they were very exaggerated. Not many years ago a lot of experts were predicting that cod farming would grow considerably faster, more dynamically than salmon farming had. They thought Norway alone would be producing a good 400,000 t by 2015. In the meantime it is becoming apparent that such quantities will not be feasible within such a short time.

In the initial excitement the difficulties involved in cod farming on an industrial scale had simply been underestimated. It was not so much the technical or biological problems that proved an obstacle to the early cod farmers but the financial burden. When the Norwegians began salmon farming 40 years ago there were practically no more wild Atlantic salmon on the market. Although demand for salmon from farms first had to be generated the product did not have to face competition from another source or the price pressure resulting from this. In the case of cod the situation is different: there is a market for the fish and demand is high but there are still cod from wild fisheries on the market. Admittedly, there is no longer enough cod on the market to satisfy all requirements but still sufficient to put price pressure on farmed cod. This means that anyone who starts farming cod under such market conditions does not only need money and know-how but also courage and a pioneering spirit.

On the other hand, it is very evident that cod farming has made considerable progress in recent years, particularly in Norway where a lot of money has been invested in research and development in order to advance technology and find practical solutions to as yet unanswered questions in the cod farming sector. This commitment is beginning to pay off and the cod farming business is gradually maturing to become a regular industry. More and more farms are being set up and production is gradually rising and is in the meantime much more stable. The time is drawing near when it will be possible to supply the markets – as in the case of salmon – with fresh cod from aquaculture all the year round. A lot of potential customers are becoming more interested in cod from aquaculture even if it is slightly more expensive than its

“wild” counterparts from fisheries. This new trend is partly driven by the broad public discussion on overfishing of some cod stocks and the desire of many consumers for more sustainability. But it is also the quality and freshness of farmed cod that can convince consumers. Norwegian exports of farmed cod rose nearly fifteen-fold from 2002 to 2006.

The situation could hardly be of greater interest to the fish industry. We will be witness to a development that has the potential to bring remarkable changes to the white fish market in the foreseeable

future. Cod from wild fisheries will continue to be of commercial significance but alongside it, farmed cod will also take the place it is due. Its production will be geared to the market, its quality will be controlled, and it will be available fresh throughout the year.

Not all the problems of cod farming have by any means been solved yet and the road ahead will have its ups and downs. But production has begun and is becoming more dynamic. Eurofish Magazine wants to inform its readers in a new series about cod farming from the egg to the marketable fish. We will be reporting on how far the development of cod farming has progressed, what problems are being worked on, and which solutions are in sight. We will mainly concentrate on Norway which, as it

was for salmon farming, is among the pioneers of cod farming. With an annual production of nearly 15,000 t Norway is already now the world’s biggest producer of farmed cod. This quantity is still not very high but it is likely to grow fast. In Norway’s aquaculture industry there is a sense of excitement about the future, reminiscent of the early years of salmon farming. Large investments are being made, companies are merging, new markets are being developed. Anyone who wants to know what markets and consumers can expect to see in the next few years will have to watch Norway… mk

Cod production will be geared to the market, its quality will be controlled, and it will be available fresh throughout the year.

Cod farming has made substantial progress over the past few years. Production is rising and has become considerably more stable.

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Auctions are an elementary stage – for some people even an indispensable one

– on the journey from the freshly landed fish to the trading sec-tor. Auctions are where buyers and sellers meet. The fisherman

sees what his colleagues have to offer, and potential buyers see what their competitors are will-ing to pay for it. The prices result from the interplay between sup-ply and demand – a relatively fair way – and they reflect the market

situation better than many an al-ternative price-finding method, particularly when an auction sells the catches of several fishing ves-sels at the same time. The larger the quantity of fish that is up for auction, the greater the buyer’s

chances of finding fishes of the quality and price they are looking for. These are the fishes it is worth bidding for. In contrast to a lot of price finding measures there are no long price negotiations at auc-tions. The speed of the auctioning technique is one of the particular advantages of fish auctions where it is usually fresh fish – an easily perishable product – that is up for sale. The potential buyers bid what

In the past it was common for local fishermen to land their catches in their home port where the fish was then put onto the market via the auction. This scenario is becoming increasingly rare and today fishing vessels land their catches in foreign ports if these are closer to the fishing regions.

Fish auctions – the gateways to international seafood markets

Fresh fish for the highest bidDespite increasing globalisation fish auctions still play a central role in the fish and seafood trade. The auctioning principle which developed centuries ago has lost none of its appeal. Auctions are perhaps the most efficient way of organising the sale and purchase of fish between sellers and buyers. The prices and markets for a lot of fish products are made at auctions.

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trade + markets

they are prepared to pay. Anyone who hesitates or pushes his luck risks letting a competitor snap up the fish before his eyes.

In order to assert themselves on the market fish auctions need to have certain equipment and tech-nical facilities. They usually have a quayside for unloading the catch from the fishing vessels and space for sorting and intermediate stor-age of the fish. Qualified workers assess the quality of every single batch of fish. Temperature con-trol, hygiene, and good product handling are common standard. The buyer can be sure that he will get the fish in the best possible condition. What makes auctions interesting to the fisherman is the certainty that he will always get the currently best possible price and of course the guarantee that he will be paid. What the internet auction eBay offers with their on-line payment service PayPal has been common practice at fish auctions for centuries: the buyer gets the product and the seller gets his money reliably.

Fish auctions assert themselves

despite globalisation

Fears that globalisation and the associated changes in relation to market access might mean the end of traditional auctions have so far not proved to be justified. Neither has the concentration of an enormous buying power in the form of fewer larger international-ly operating groups of processing companies or the growing market share of globally operating super-market chains in the retail trade made fish auctions superfluous. Like the fish buyers the auctions have realised the need to change with the markets, modernise, cre-ate networks between themselves and adapt to today’s require-ments.

This development has led to the fact that fish auctions today offer much more than just the hall in which the fishes are presented and auctioned. Auction manag-ers continuously have to take care of procurement of raw ma-terials in order to be able to offer to potential buyers an appropri-ately wide and attractive range of fish as possible. Today the buyers do not only come from the direct vicinity but can take part in the bidding via the phone and the Internet from a long way away. A prerequisite for this is, how-ever, that important information on the landed fish is collected in accordance with fixed standards and placed at the disposal of all bidders. That, too, is one of the services offered by modern auc-tions. The more attractively the fishes are presented for auction, the better the possible prices. On board a ship the possibili-ties are often limited for prepar-ing the fish in an appealing way for presentation to buyers. For this reason a lot of auctions offer the service of sorting the landed fishes by species, size and quality so as to present them attractively at the auction and then pack and even deliver them according to customer requirements after the auction. Among the new tasks carried out by auctions today is also the collection of primary data for traceability systems and the exact registration of catch volumes, broken down into spe-cies. This information is required both for statistical purposes and for calculating future fishing quotas.

About 70% of the catches which are landed by fishing vessels from EU member countries are placed onto the market via auctions. In some countries like Portugal, Spain or the Netherlands the share of fish sold via an auction is even as high as nearly 100 per cent.

Eurofish International OrganisationH.C. Andersens Boulevard 44-46

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Tel.: +45 333 777 55, Fax: +45 333 777 56

Internet: www.eurofish.dk, E-Mail: [email protected]

ISSN 1020-9956 June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

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Considerably wider service portfolio

of auctions

Everywhere along the European coasts fish auctions can be found that have set themselves up well for the future. For example Fish-gate in Kingston upon Hull (UK) whose history goes back as far as the 14th century. The fish auc-tioned there today is mainly fresh fish from the waters off Iceland, the Faeroes and Norway. The auc-tion hall which was built in the year 2000 has a powerful com-puter system which tracks the path of all products from their ar-rival to their delivery. The auction works to HACCP and BRC global standards.

Annual sales of between 300 and 500 million DKK make Hanstholm the biggest fish auction in Den-mark. Not only Danish but also a lot of foreign fishing vessels land their catches in Hanstholm, and fish from contract deliveries by ferry from Norway and the Faeroes also ensure regular arrivals. What makes Hanstholm so attractive to fishermen is the prompt payment of the fish: the latest computer technology enables payment on the day of the auction. The auc-tion customers come from all over Europe. Deliveries of auctioned fish to destinations within the EU region are made within 24 hours.

The fish auction in Hirtshals (an-nual sales c. 25 m EUR) co-op-erates closely with K-Fisk from Karmoey in Norway and the Danish Fiskernes Fiskesortering. K-Fisk receives fresh fish from Norwegian and Danish vessels in Skudesneshavn. This is then taken to the Hirtshals Fish Termi-nal in Super Speed ferries belong-ing to Color Line. There, Fiskernes Fiskesortering handles the sorting and packaging of the fishes before these are auctioned. This interna-

tional co-operation means that Norwegian fishermen have the chance to benefit from the auc-tion prices in Denmark – which are often higher than elsewhere.

However, hardly any fish auction is still in a position to meet the demand of all of its customers on its own. The requirements of large retail chains or processing companies demand that the auc-tions build up networks to be able to offer such customers access to a broader range of fish. So far this networking has been pushed ahead most strongly by the Pan-European Fish Auction, in short Pefa. Founded in 1998 the Pefa auction system in the meantime has 13 member fish auctions in The Netherlands, Belgium, Den-mark, Sweden and Italy. Together, their annual sales amounted to 206 m EUR in 2008. Pefa claims it is the world’s biggest virtual real-time fish auction and the leading Internet sales platform for fresh fish in Europe.

Just how attractive the auctioning principle still is today can be seen in the establishment of the fish auction Klaipeda in Lithuania in 2007. It was the first in the three Baltic States. The modern build-ing which was constructed for 5.6 m LTL (c. 1.6 m EUR) is situated in the fishing port of Klaipeda which is located in the estuary of the Smiltele river. This fish auction has all the technical facilities for sort-ing, cooling, cleaning and packag-ing of the fish. It mainly auctions catches from the Baltic. Between 25 and 40 tonnes of Baltic fish are auctioned every day in Klaipeda.

Situation in the fishing sector

makes auction business difficult

However, alongside these posi-tive examples and achievements,

Europe’s auctions also have to struggle with some problems and are confronted with all kinds of challenges. The changes taking place in the traditional fishing sector are having particularly strong effects. In the past it was common for local fishermen to land their catches in their home port where the fish was then put onto the market via the auc-tion. This scenario is becoming

increasingly rare and today fish-ing vessels land their catches in foreign ports if these are closer to the fishing regions. The share of catches which are already pre-processed by the fishermen at sea has increased considerably. The less buyers are able to meet their demand for fish via local auctions the more they turn to internation-al trading centres and imports to fulfil their needs. This weakens

trade + markets


the market position of the auc-tions because in the meantime two thirds of the EU members’ fish requirements are met by im-ports.

The main reason for this is the poor condition of many fish stocks in the EU waters. In spite of the common fisheries policy resolution in the EU in 1983 and its adaptation to changing condi-

tions in 1992 and 2002 it has still not proved possible to achieve a real turnaround towards a genu-inely sustainable fisheries man-agement. National egoism and a lack of foresight on the part of political decision-makers have for years delayed urgently need-ed decisions and contributed strongly to the dilemma. Much too often, for example, the fish-ing quotas which the EU fisheries ministers decided on in their an-nual meetings in December were considerably higher than the rec-ommendations made by fisheries researchers. Every year the quo-tas are haggled over in Brussels to divide up the catch. Critics have thus begun to call these minis-ters’ meetings the “Brussels’ an-nual fish auction”.

The consequences of this unsuc-cessful fisheries policy are alarm-ing: nearly 30% of the commercial-ly utilised fish stocks are currently beyond safe biological limits. The fishing fleet is too big, and its fish-ing capacity by far exceeds the scale upon which it is possible to fish without endangering the future of the stocks. This leads to numerous ships hardly being able to make profits, or even having to face losses. Only recently have the decision-makers started following a harsher course of fisheries man-agement. This includes important stocks no longer being managed on an annual basis but in the con-

text of long-term management plans. The Council Regulations 423/2004 and 811/2004, for exam-ple, contain details of redevelop-ment plans for stocks of cod and northern hake.

Datanet to network European fish auctions

Of course, politicians, too, are aware of the significance of fisher-ies, fish processing and fish trade for numerous European regions. The economy and livelihood of many small coastal communities are in the meantime completely dependent on fish. With Council Regulation (EC) No. 104/2000 an attempt was made to cautiously regulate and harmonize the mar-kets for fishery and aquaculture products. The prime objective is to achieve a Europe-wide uniform organisation of the fish market which would bring available sup-ply more in line with demand. In this way, it is hoped, competition will increase which would then lead to better and more stable prices for fish and enable the fishermen a lucrative occupation. Due to the Europe-wide compe-tition for fish the quality of the products would naturally rise, too, particularly since the raw materi-als would be labelled according to uniform standards: the basis of a Europe-wide uniform traceability system.

Amazingly, fish auctions which play a key role as ”primary sell-ers“ when the fish enters the mar-ket and are also decisive for the prices of a lot of fish species are not even mentioned in the EU pa-per. This is probably partly due to the fact that the auctions have so far not sufficiently recognised the need to make their central impor-tance for the whole fish industry clear to the decision-makers. The interests of the auction sector are represented in EAFPA (European

Association of Fishing Ports and Auctions). This association rep-resents more than 130 European auctions via which nearly 70% of the fresh fish landed throughout Europe is placed onto the mar-ket. This is considerable but is by no means representative of all European auctions whose total number the EAFPA estimates to be about 330. Just a few years ago even the industry association did not know how many first point of sale auctions there were in Eu-rope and what services they of-fered. With the financial support of the EU the project DATANET was thus set up in 2004 with the aim of closing these information gaps.

The aim of the project ’European Fish Auction Datanet‘ is to col-lect basic data and information on European fish auctions in ac-cordance with uniform standards and put them together in a data base. During the start phase it was mainly a question of finding those auctions that already of-fered an online service, determin-ing its scale and what it cost. Over the course of time, however, the datanet is to develop into a Euro-pean reference system which will be freely accessible to everyone and will offer information on the quantity and species of the fish auctioned as well as the market-ing channels. Users can log into the system. This registration prin-ciple is to ensure that unauthor-ized persons will be unable to gain access to company data and to guarantee the confidential-ity of sensitive business relation-ships. On top of the data base the networked online platform also offers further possibilities. For the future, for example, there are plans to integrate the traceability systems of the fish auctions. That would be a further contribution towards improving the efficiency of the European fish industry. mk

The interests of the auction sector are represented in EAFPA (European Association of Fishing Ports and Auctions). This association represents more than 130 European auctions via which nearly 70% of the fresh fish landed throughout Europe is placed onto the market. However, EAFPA estimates the total number of European auctions to be about 330.

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Fish Infonetwork News

Member Country News

Projects

The eighth Meeting of the Gen-eral Assembly of INFOPESCA took place in San Jose, Costa Rica, on 3 April 2009, in the Country Inn Hotel. At the meet-ing Mr. Alan Bojanic, Repre-sentative of FAO in Costa Rica, emphasized the relevant role of INFOPESCA in Latin America and member countries unani-mously elected Mrs. María Ga-

briela Pineda, General Director of Fishery and Aquaculture (DI-GEPESCA), Honduras, President of the General Assembly for the period 2009-2011. The next Gen-eral Assembly will take place one day before the beginning of COFI in 2010. The President of the Assembly also informed the assembly of the decision to open a regional office in Brazil.

Eighth meeting of the General Assembly of INFOPESCA

A group of twelve fish traders and boat owners from Aceh, Indonesia accompanied by three fisheries officers visited Malaysia from 19-25 February to explore business opportunities and establish direct business link with their Malaysian counterparts. They visited fish landing sites, wholesale and retail fish markets as well as a ‘barter trade’ port in Port Klang, Kuala Lumpur. The visit, organised by

INFOFISH, was one of the com-ponents under the activities of the FAO Fish Marketing Information Project for Aceh (GCP/INS/078/SPA), funded by the Spanish gov-ernment.

The FAO Fish Marketing Infor-mation Project for Aceh was

initiated to help the 2004 tsu-nami affected Aceh fish traders and fishermen/fish farmers gain better market access for their products in the regional mar-kets, particularly in neighbour-ing Malaysia. The main purpose of the Aceh fish traders visit to Malaysia was to explore oppor-tunities for them to deal directly with Malaysian fish buyers, in-stead of through an intermedi-

ary as had been the case under the previous system. A number of business meetings, field visits and discussions were held with the Malaysian counterparts. The mission was considered a suc-cess with some business deals concluded and several possible joint ventures discussed.

Marketing project for Aceh fish traders organised by INFOFISH

Business meeting in Kuala Lumpur between fish traders and boat owners from Aceh, Indonesia and local buyers.

As part of a project to improve the domestic markets for fishery products in Latin America and the Caribbean, a regional meet-ing on domestic markets in Latin America was held to dissemi-

nate the results achieved in the project. The meeting took place in Boca Chica, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on 24-26 March. Thirty-six participants

from thirteen countries and two organizations (FAO and INFOP-ESCA) took part in the meeting.

One of the main subjects tackled by the project was the institu-

tional strengthening in the area of commercialization of fish and fishery products in the domestic market including concepts and modern techniques of commer-

Improving the domestic markets for fishery products in Latin America and the Caribbean

A regional meeting on domestic markets for fishery products in Latin America was held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in March 2009.

cialization and quality control, as well as the management of market information.

FAO implemented this project in 10 countries: Belize, Brazil, Co-lombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Ven-ezuela. Among the activities developed in the project were national workshops to raise awareness for government offi-

cials; organization of a seminar-workshop on commercialization of fish and fishery products in each country that took part of the project; and preparation of a document about the local names of the market relevant species in Latin America in order to help identify the resources that, in many cases, are named differ-ently in each country or even in different regions of the same country.



The FIN consists of 7 independent partner organizations. They cover all aspects of post-harvest fisheries and aquaculture. With more than 50 governments support-ing the network, which also has strong links to the private sector, the activities are truly international. The FIN pages, which are a regular feature in the four network magazines – Infofish International, Infopesca Internacional, Eurofish Magazine, and Infosamak Magazine – present the FIN-wide spectrum of activities, showing actions and results. The FIN has more than 80 full-time staff and works with more than one hundred international experts in all fields of fisheries. Through its link from FAO Globefish to the FAO Fisheries Department, it also has access to the latest information and knowledge on fisheries policy and management issues worldwide.

FIN executes donor projects, prepares market research for private companies, and organizes training courses on marketing and quality assurance. All seven services offer different possibilities for co-operation with the private sector, institutes, government offices and donors.

n GlobefishFishery Industries Division FAOViale delle Terme di Caracalla I 00100 Rome, Italy Tel.: (+39) 06 5705 6313/5059 Fax: (+39) 06 5705 5188 [email protected] www.globefish.orgPartners: Seafood Services Australia, De-partment of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada; Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Denmark; European Commission (DG FISH); OFIMER, France; Norwegian Seafood Export Council; Ministero de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación, Spain; National Marine Fisher-ies Service, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, USA; VASEP, Viet Nam

n InfopescaCasilla de Correo 7086Julio Herrea y Obes 1296 11200 Montevideo, Uruguay Tel.: (+598) 2 9028701/2 Fax: (+598) 2 9030501 [email protected] Member Countries: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Venezuela

n Infofish Menara Olympia, Level 28 Jalan Raja ChulanKuala Lumpur 50200, MalaysiaTel.: (+603) 20783466Fax: (+603) 2078 [email protected] Countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Maldives, Malaysia,Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand

n InfopecheTour C -19éme étage, Cité Administrative, Abidjan 01, Cote d‘Ivoire Tel.: (+225) 228980 / 215775Fax: (+225) 218054 [email protected]/index.php?id=1113

Member Countries: Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Gabon, Gam-bia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

n InfosaSouthern African suboffice of InfopecheP.O. Box 23523, Kenya HouseRobert Mugabe Avenue, 4th FloorWindhoek, NamibiaTel: (+264) 61 279430Fax: (+264) 61 [email protected] www.infosa.org.naMember Countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Sey-chelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

n EurofishH.C. Andersens Boulevard 44 - 46DK-1553 Copenhagen V, DenmarkTel: (+45) 333 777 55Fax: (+45) 333 777 [email protected], www.eurofish.dkMember Countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Spain, Turkey,

n InfoyuRoom 203, Bldg 18, Maizidian Street, Chaoyang District Beijing 100026, P.R. China Tel.: (+86) 10 64195140 Fax: (+86) 10 64195141 [email protected] www.globefish.org/index.php?id=2074Member Countries: China

n Infosamak71 Boulevard Rahal Meskini B.P.16243 Casablanca, MoroccoTel.: (+212) 22540856 Fax: (+212) 22540855 [email protected] Countries: Algeria, Bahrain,Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Yemen

The Fish Infonetwork ( FIN )

A project that will promote aqua-culture in the Amazonian region of Brazil, Peru and Colombia was approved by the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC).

The project will last for three years and aims to introduce quality fishery products from the

Amazonian region to the local and global markets and thereby, contribute to the sustainable development of fishing activities in the region. INFOPESCA will be in charge of the execution of the project in the cities of Iquitos (Peru), Leticia (Colombia) and Manaos (Brazil).

Enhancing market access for Amazonian aquaculture and fisheries products

EUROFISH is a member of the SustainAqua consortium, a group of research institutions, private companies, and associations of freshwater aquaculture compa-nies, that are striving to make the European freshwater aquaculture sector more competitive by low-ering construction, maintenance and running costs, particularly in

the area of wastewater treatment. The project is partly funded by the European Union under the Sixth Framework Programme. At a recent project committee meeting in Szarvas, Hungary, the status of the five case studies being conducted in five differ-ent countries was presented. The meeting also discussed the train-

ing seminars that are planned for the months of May, June, and July, where members of the as-sociations will be introduced to the methods and tools developed in the project to make fish farms more efficient. These include a handbook with detailed informa-tion from the case studies, a wiki with relevant information for the

freshwater aquaculture indus-try, and technical leaflets. Two four-day e-learning courses are also scheduled for June and July. These will provide a practical ap-proach to sustainable freshwater aquaculture starting with the principles, discussing the case studies, and finally providing some legal background.

SustainAqua project finalises handbook

At the SustainAqua project committee meeting in Szarvas, Hungary, participants were taken to the African catfish farm where the Hungarian case study is being carried out. Researchers are using a wetland system to treat the effluent water from the farm.


speech the Controller for Agri-culture, Extension and Technical services Dr. Jeffrey Lauhanga, re-minded participants of the high demand for fish in both rural and urban communities in Malawi. The FAO resident representa-tive pointed out the need for an effective national fish inspec-

tion service to ensure that good quality and safe fish reaches the local consumers and the critical role played by a Fish Inspection Service. He hoped that the work-shop will pave the way for the development of an effective and efficient fish inspection unit in Malawi.

Events

The FAO in collaboration with INFOSA organised a workshop on “Codex Code of Practices and Fish Inspection services in Fish Bio Security” from the 26 to 29 April 2009 at Sunbird Lilongwe Hotel.

As part of its mandate to build ca-pacity, INFOSA collaborated with the FAO in the organisation of the workshop which was attended by thirty-one participants from vari-ous ministries, organisations and local companies. In his opening

Workshop on fish biosecurity in Lilongwe, Malawi


On 2 April 2009 a dissemination seminar was organised in San José, Costa Rica. The seminar was tied to a project to improve the market efficiency of artisanal fisheries in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Thirty people from

six countries in the region, three regional organizations (OLDEP-ESCA, OSPESCA, INFOPESCA) and an international organization, FAO, participated in the event,

that also attracted several fishing directors from the region. Among the topics discussed were the con-cepts of artisanal fishing; the Com-mon Fund for Commodities and project financing and the role of FAO as a supervision institution. In

addition the results of the project from Honduras and Mexico were discussed as well as the applicabil-ity of the results in the remaining Latin American countries.

Creating a more efficient artisanal fishery in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean

As part of a Common Fund for Commodities funded project Costa Rica hosted a seminar on improving the efficiency of artisanal fisheries in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Two farms in Myanmar that are partners in the Organic Aquacul-ture Project funded by the Com-mon Fund for Commodities (CFC) and executed by INFOFISH have been awarded transitional organic status by the Organic Aquaculture Farm and Products Certification Centre (OAPC) of Thailand. The farms, Arsha Thar International Co Ltd and Pale Nadi Co Ltd, are the first two farms outside Thailand to

be awarded OAPC certification, un-der a special arrangement between OAPC, the Department of Fisheries (DOF) of Thailand and the project.

Arsha Thar, located in Nyaungdon Township in the Ayeyarwaddy Division, farms giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosen-bergii), as well as freshwater fish such as tilapia, pangasius, and

carps. Pale Nadi, which is located in the Thilawar Aquaculture Zone of Kyauk Tan Township, farms black tiger shrimp (Penaeus mon-odon). The farms were inspected by auditors from the OAPC in Oc-tober last year and were certified in March this year.

The two farms received their or-ganic certificates from Mr Khin Ko Lay, Deputy Director General

of the Department of Fisheries, Myanmar during a simple cer-emony held at the Myanmar Fish-eries Federation in April this year. Mr Tin Min, General Manager of Arsha Thar, and Mr Than Win Aung , Managing Director of Pale Nadi, received the certificates, watched by officials from the DOF, Myanmar Fisheries Federa-tion (MFF) and INFOFISH.

Myanmar farms receive organic certification

Mr Tin Min of Arsha Thar and Mr Than Win Aung of Pale Nadi (fourth and sixth from left, respectively) with Mr Khin Ko Lay (centre) and DOF, MFF and INFOFISH officials after receiving their certificates.

Participants at the workshop on fish biosecurity in Lilongwe, Malawi.

June

12-14 June, 2009Vietnam Fisheries International Exhibition 2009 ( Vietfish 2009)Ho Chi Minh CityVietnamTel.: +84-08-628 10442Fax: +84-08-628 [email protected]

16-18 June 2009Polfish 2009Gdansk, PolandTel.: +48 58 554 9362Fax: +48 58 554 [email protected]

August

14-17 August, 2009Aquaculture Europe 2009Trondheim, NorwayTel.: +32 59 323859Fax: +32 59 [email protected]

18-21 August 2009Aqua Nor 2009Trondheim, NorwayTel.: +47 73 56 86 [email protected] www.aqua-nor.com

September

14-15 September 2009IV Worldwide Conference of Tuna “Vigo 2009”Vigo, Spain Tel.: +34986 469 301Fax: +34986 469 [email protected]

15-18 September, 20093rd Joint Trans-Atlantic Fisheries Technology Conference (TAFT)Copenhagen, DenmarkTel.: +45 45 25 25 [email protected]

15-18 September 2009World Food Moscow 2009Moscow, RussiaTel.: +7 495 935 7350Fax: +7 495 935 [email protected]

17-21 September, 2009 World Fishing Exhibition Vigo 2009Vigo, SpainTel.: +34 986 447485Fax: +34 986 [email protected]

16-19 September, 2009Aqua Farming International Exhibition 2009Vigo, SpainTel.: +44 1329 820495 Mrybak-rendell@worldtradeexhibitions.comwww.aquafarminginternational.com

October

6-8 October, 2009ConxemarVigo, SpainTel.: +34 986 433 351Fax: +34 986 221 [email protected]

7-9 October 2009DanFish International 2009Aalborg, DenmarkTel.: +45 9935 5555Fax: +45 9935 [email protected], www.danfish.com

10-14 October 2009AnugaCologne, GermanyTel: +49 221 821 2214Fax: +49 221 821 3410www.anuga.com

12-14 October 2009Dubai International Seafood Expo 2009Dubai, United Arab EmiratesTel.: +971 4 298 7730Fax: +971 4 298 [email protected]

19-22 October, 2009Interfish 2009Moscow, RussiaTel.: +7 495 228 70 74Fax: +7 495 228 70 [email protected], www.interfish-expo.ru

November

12-14 November, 2009Expo Pesca 2009Lima, PeruTel.: +511 344 4386Fax: +511 344 [email protected]/expopesca_new

24-26 November, 2009Ribpromexpo 2009Moscow, Russia Tel.: +7 495 9818220Fax: +7 495 [email protected], www.fish-expo.ru

December

9-12 December 2009Shanghai International Fisheries and Seafood ExpoShanghai, ChinaTel.:+86 21 34141036Fax:+86 21 [email protected], www.sifse.com

Diary Dates

Add your event to www.eurofish.dk

AquaNor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

AquaTech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Boulogne-sur-Mer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

CuxhavenerKühlhäuser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Dybvad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

EmperorAquatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Evers,Eddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Fieret . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Geoeye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

GS-Schleiftechnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

InterFreshConcepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Koffeman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

KorosFishTradeandProcessingCooperative . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Laschinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . InnerCover

Maass+Partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Metalquimia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Modernpack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

MovinoxSRL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Ness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

OscarSomme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Peruza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Rosoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Salmco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .BackCover

SiaSalasZivis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Stawiany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Szegedfish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

WorldTradeFairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

In-house Advertisments

EMSubscription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

WorkshopatPolfsh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

List of AdvErtisErs

Name of Company Pageimprint

Publishing House FachpresseVerlagMichaelSteinertAnderAlster21D-20099HamburgGermanyPhone+49(0)40/248454-0Fax+49(0)40/2803788

Joint publishers & managing editors

MichaelSteinert,VictorHjort

Editorial office Copenhagen

BehnanThomas(bt)H .C .AndersensBoulevard44-46DK-1553CopenhagenVDenmarkPhone+4533377755behnan .thomas@eurofish .dk

Editorial office Hamburg

AndréNikolaus(nik)Phone+49(0)40/248454-17andre .nikolaus@snfachpresse .de

BjörnMarnau(bm)Phone+49(0)40/248454-15bjoern .marnau@snfachpresse .de

Editorial office Delbrück

Dr .ManfredKlinkhardt(mk)RedaktionsbüroDelbrückFranz-Stock-Straße23D-33129DelbrückGermanyPhone+49(0)5250/933416manfred .klinkhardt@web .de

Editorial board GrimurValdimarsson,MartinGill,WolfgangKrone,MichaelNew,LahsenAbabouch

Layout SvenMohr-Eggert(responsible),LukasTarapataMatthiasHellmuth,NorbertLützow,SebastianKrebsE-Mail:sven .mohr@snfachpresse .de

Translation YvonneBulmer

Advertising EckhardPreußMarderstieg7D-21717FredenbeckGermanyPhone+49(0)4149/8020Fax+49(0)4149/7292e .preuss@freenet .de

AleksandraPetersenEurofishMagazineH .C .AndersensBoulevard44-46DK-1553CopenhagenVDenmarkPhone+4533377763Fax+4533377756aleksandra .petersen@eurofish .dk

Frequency 6issuesperyear

Subscription details Price:EUR85,–Tosubscribevisitwww .eurofish .dkorsendanemailtoinfo@eurofish .dk

Unlessotherwisestated,thecopyrightforarticlesinthismagazineisvestedinthepublisher .Articlesmaynotbereproducedwithoutwrittenpermissionfromthecopyrightholders .

Advertisingratesanddataavailableonrequest .Thepublisherscannotbeheldresponsibleforthenonap-pearanceofthemagazineincasesbeyondtheircontrolsuchasstrikes,shortageofpaperorsimilarcircumstances .

ISSN1020-9956

Order your free trialFax: +45 333 777 56

E-mail: [email protected]

the Fish Publishing House

Eurofish Magazine FischMagazin www.eurofish.dk www.fischmagazin.de

D ie Fachze i t sch r i f t f ü r d i e gesamte F i schw i r t scha f t

Lenk Frozen FoodsNeue „Prefried“-Produkte sollen Impulse bringen Seite 24

FischmagazinNeue Website www.fischmagazin.de 5 / 2009 C10152E

Magazin für TK-Seafood, Chi l led Food, Convenience

TK-FischConvenience

FischMagazin

S p e z i a l

Femeg zieht europäische Produktion zusammen Tiefgekühlte Fischspezialitäten aus deutscher Produktion Seite 10

Neue Website www.fischmagazin.de Mai 2009

Mit Extra-Heft

Heiko Lenk mit thailändischen Mitarbeitern

ISSN 1020-9956 June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

Measures to restore fl eet profi tabilty

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Crustaceans

n n n n n n n n n n Supply SOurCeS n n n n n n n n n n

packaging

Salmon slicers

Smoked salmon

Styropor® ( polystyrene ) compressors

Wire ropes

TransportSALMCO Technik GmbHReinskamp 1D-22117 HamburgTel.: +49-40-713 14 72Fax : +49-40-712 98 70Internet: www.salmco.deE-Mail: [email protected]

SALMON SLICER... worldwideR. MAASS + PARTNER GMBH

Röntgenstrasse 12D-21493 SchwarzenbekTel.: +49 41 51 / 866 955Fax: +49 41 51 / 867 188www.maass-slicers.de

D-27472 CUXHAVENGrodener Chaussee 61Telefon 0 47 21 / 208-0

Telefax 0 47 21 /208-100

FRANKFURT / MAIN-AIRPORTGebäude 456 A, Raum Nr. 3435

Telefon 0 69 / 69 76 76-30Telefax 0 69 / 69 76 76-50

Can opening machines

Insulated Containers

Frozen seafood specialties

Hamburger Feinfrost GmbH - Frozen Quality ProductsGr. Elbstrasse 158 - 22767 Hamburg

Tel.: +49 (40) 39 92 92-0, Fax: +49 (40) 39 92 92 39E-Mail: [email protected] - www.hafro.de

The fastest way to advertise in Eurofish Magazine

ISSN 1020-9956

June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

Measures to restore fl eet profi tabiltySweden


Auctions: The gateways to international seafood marketsRussia: New trends on the market

Eckhard PreußMarderstieg 7, D-21717 Fredenbeck, Germany

Phone +49 (0) 41 49 / 80 20, Fax +49 (0) 41 49 / 72 92


Aleksandra Petersen, Eurofish MagazineH.C. Andersens Boulevard 44-46, DK-1553 Copenhagen V, Denmark

Phone +45 333 777 63, Fax +45 333 777 56


Ristic AGAm Espen 15, D-90559 OberferriedenTel.: 0 91 83 / 40 90, Fax: 0 91 83 / 4 09 49Web: www.ristic.com, E-Mail: [email protected]

ISSN 1020-9956 June 3 / 2009 C 44346

FISH INFOnetwork

Measures to restore fleet profitabilty

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Salmco Technik GmbH · Hamburg · GermanyTel.: +4940713 1472 · E-Mail: [email protected] · Internet: www.salmco.com

Thanks for visiting our booth at ESE/SPE Brussels 2009

eurofish magazine 3 2009

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