What our fishing industry is up against.

PEW Charitable Trust is currently advertising for a  Senior Associate, Communications (Press Officer) to be based in their Brussels office liaising directly with their London Office. And they are not alone.

"Our Brussels office is #hiring - we're looking for a Senior Associate, Communications to support our Ending Overfishing in Northwestern Europe campaign."

Despite the overwhelming efforts of the UK fishing industry to fish sustainably - remember "there are only 100 adult cod in the North Sea"? - organisations (largely American) and NGOs continually lobby Brussels and elsewhere as if fishing was on the verge of collapse. They are able to spend millions of dollars lobbying European governments including in the UK.

Their own marketing material describes them as "independent nonprofit"founded by money from American oil...

yet when it comes to being transparent about how they are funded today you can see they are almost at the bottom of the 'Transparency League Table'.

In other words, 4,071 independent UK fishing vessels, the vast majority of whom are simply businesses trying to put food in people's mouths and paying off mortgages and bills are faced with the lobbying power of gigantic proportions.

Fishing Today on Radio 4 all this week.

Listen to this podcast as Paul Trebilcock, from the Cornish Fish Producer Organisation's and a host of other guest speakers from England, Ireland and Scotland were interviewed by the Radio 4 Farming Today programme all this week.

Just a thought, maybe the BBC could re-brand the programme as Fishing and Farming Today and have a regular fishing spot every morning?

"As the sun rises over Newlyn harbour in West Cornwall, Sarah Swadling talks to people at the bustling fish auction about the future of the industry. With Brexit around the corner fishermen, buyers and processors are all expecting big changes to come. The programme tackles the potential impact of Brexit on quotas and trade with the EU, recruitment difficulties in fishing and processing and how to tempt more British people to eat more British fish."

Presented by Sarah Swadling. Produced by Heather Simons.

Chasing the scallops.

Looks like these two visiting Irish boats, the Hornsriff...

and the Lida Suzanna...

have been testing out the waters in the Bay de Seine...

for a few scallops.

Eco-labeling encourages sales of all kinds of seafood, not just sustainable products

Shoppers will buy larger quantities of seafood – both sustainably certified and non-certified – when given information about eco-labels, new research has found.

Using previous surveys that had evidenced that price and taste matter most to people when they buy seafood, and also that shoppers have a tendency to buy the same products as friends and family members, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) decided to test what would happen if store customers were told that lots of other shoppers bought Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) labeled seafood.

Isabel Richter's doctoral research in environmental psychology at NTNU explored how people could be motivated to eat more sustainable seafood. She was granted permission to carry out an experiment in grocery stores in Norway and Germany.

Richter started by first putting up a sign with information about the MSC label on the seafood cooler. The cooler included salmon and cod both with and without the MSC label, with similar prices and weight.

In the next trials, she put up eight different signs with an image and label information – plus some wording telling shoppers that a percentage of the customers who shopped at that particular store chose to buy seafood with the MSC label.

Four of the signs said that more than 50 percent of the customers in the store selected eco-labeled products, while the other four signs said that less than 50 percent of customers did this.

In the Norwegian stores, about 70 percent of the products were not labeled. In Germany, the MSC eco-label is more widespread, so several products included it.

Richter and her colleagues assumed that more customers would choose MSC-labeled products in the stores where they were told that more than half of the other customers bought MSC-labelled seafood. But that wasn't how it went.

The signs had almost no effect on the sale of sustainable salmon and cod. Instead, the researchers discovered that the total sales of seafood products, both with and without eco-labeling, skyrocketed as long as the signs were on display at the coolers.

In the Norwegian stores, total seafood sales increased by 70 percent during the test period, while the increase in German stores was 30 percent.

"We wanted to motivate people to eat more sustainable seafood, but instead we motivated them to eat more of all kinds of seafood – including non-sustainable options. Eco-labeling is a very common form of sustainability communication, so it was important for us to find out what had really happened here," said Richter.

She created a virtual store, where participants in the study could freely choose different groceries from the shelves. They were given EUR 20 (USD 22.82) each to shop with. The items had no familiar brand names, but they had labels that communicated different messages, including that products were sustainable. Some had labels with nothing on them.

However, before the virtual shopping tour, participants were presented with a variety of messages – such as a picture of a fish and text stating whether the fish was healthy or unhealthy – without knowing that this was part of the experiment.

The researchers presumed that people would buy more of the products marked with a message, regardless of whether the message was positive or negative, if they had seen the product before. And that was what they saw.

"Even if you tell consumers that milk prevents osteoporosis, 'milk' is the only thing they remember," said Richter. "If customers are encouraged to buy organic cucumbers, it's just 'cucumbers' they want. If we recommend that people eat less of something and at the same time, we mention the entire product category, people are motivated to eat more of everything in that product category."

"We think what might work is to communicate what customers should do, and not what they shouldn't do."

For example, Richter said if people were asked not to choose endangered tuna the next time, they buy sushi, they'll just want to have tuna.

Instead, it should be recommended that they choose sustainable scallops for their sushi, she said.

"Maybe the labels would have worked better if there'd been just one label for all sustainable products. So many different labels are out there now,” she said. "And even without the eco-label, fish already has so many other labels: the Nordic keyhole label, that it's antibiotic-free, locally produced, and so on. People don't know what all the different labels mean."

Study: Eco-labeling encourages sales of all kinds of seafood, not just sustainable products
By Jason Holland
November 1, 2018

Contributing Editor reporting from London, UK
jason@jasonhollandcommunications.com

Twitter at @SeafoodGuruSome

Instagram (jasonhollandcomms)

Just published - Economics of the UK Fishing Fleet 2017

Overall, the performance of the UK fishing fleet in 2017 was largely similar
to that of 2016. Particular changes in average prices, income and costs
are discussed in the following points.

• The total number of active fishing vessels increased from 4,637 in 2016 to 4,701 in 2017. Of these active vessels, around 1,500 were classed by Seafish as low activity vessels with a fishing income of less than £10,000. 

• Total fishing income for UK vessels increased from £946million in 2016 to £984million in 2017 (nominal figures). The increase in fishing income was mostly due to higher average prices of shellfish species in 2017, therefore vessels relying on shellfish for income benefitted most. 

• The total operating profit of the UK fishing fleet in 2017 was an estimated £254million. This is a 4% decrease (in nominal terms) from 2016, when it reached £265million. The average operating profit margin of the fleetdecreased from 22% in 2016 to 19% in 2017. 

• The decrease in operating profit was largely driven by an increase in the fleet operating costs, which was mainly due to a higher annual average price of fuel in 2017. In nominal terms, the average price of fuel increased by 73% between January 2016 and December 2017. Total spend on fuel of the fleet increased by 26% (in nominal terms) in 2017 to an estimated £119million compared to 2016. Operating costs increased from 78% of total income in 2016 to 81% of total income in 2017. 

• Seafish researchers interviewed around 400 skippers and vessel owners during the summer of 2017. These interviews highlighted issues such as the abundance of fish, access to quota, fuel price, weather and other issues as the main factors impacting the financial performance of businesses. Seafish’s Quay Issues magazine investigates these concerns in more detail, looking at innovative approaches to tackle the challenges faced by the industry. 

• Interviewees reported a mixture of ambitions for the next few years.
Vessel owners and skippers mentioned several factors when discussing business limitations and uncertainty including the future political and trade landscape, abundance of fish, oil price, quota access and the weather.

NB: All financial estimates for 2017 will be revised when vessel accounts for that year are available in early 2019. A new annual report will be published based on updated estimates.

#FishyFriday in Newlyn

#FishyFriday finds Newlyn full of fish again...

with a great shot of flats like these brill...

and other flats from the inshore trawler Elisabeth Veronique...

while the new kid on the block, Ocean Harvest pulled out a solid trip with good fishing on ray...

while the handline boys like Cap'n Cod on the Butts...

pulled up good hauls of pollack...

and bass for their day's work...

which kept the buyers busy...

the Karen of Ladram was one of three netters to land early trips for this neap tide...

and the quality of the fish only a couple of days old was enough to make even the most hardened buyers happy...

with well over 400 boxes of the best MSC Certified Cornish hake to choose from...

boats like the Amanda of Ladram...

one of only a handful of boats licensed to land spurdog...

there were also a few carp-like red mullet from up the coast...

and a solid trip quality flats...

and monk tails...

from Nathan Marshall, skipper of the Billy Rowney...

no prizes for guessing what these boxes are full of...

bass are always something of a bonus for an inshore trawler...

like this trip from Tom on the Harvest Reaper...

at first light the moon hangs almost due south of the harbour...

and judging by the look of...

the sky it's going to be another

gorgeous day in Cornwall...

as the light begins to fill the harbour...

work on the aluminium shelterdeck...

of the Galilee is well underway...

both these boats are at the ready to sail at a moment's notice...

an early morning delivery of fuel oil arrives down the quay...

a sure sign of the autumn in Keel Alley...

work nears completion on the other new crabber in the port on the slip...

as does work on the beam trawler, Resurgam nearing the end of her massive overhaul...

back on the Billy Rowney Dan plans a night ashore...

as skipper Steve discusses the poor forecast and the bumpy ride off they will have when sailing tomorrow given the poor forecast for the weekend...

which should give cameraman Luke something to think about planning those poor weather shots as he heads back to pick up more film gear for the trip.

Fishing after Brexit: voices from the coast

It's often stated by politicians that the fishing industry voted for Brexit in order to escape from the EU fishing quotas. This ignores the voices of the smaller fishermen, who are fishing in a much more sustainable way and are often based in rural communities. Alasdair Macleod was strongly anti-Brexit and it seems many fishermen like him round the UK feel the same way. Their interests and opinions must be taken into account in the chaos of the negotiations. The powerful voice of the SFF, which represents the big industrial boats in Scotland, must not be allowed to prevail.

There is an opportunity here for a new approach to fishing policy, which enables the creation of a sustainable fishing industry, managed locally by people who take responsibility for ensuring the stocks remain healthy.
Please listen to the fishermen from round the UK (including lots of locals) speaking out in this film and if you are able to support them in any way, please do so, even if it's just to challenge the oft quoted claim that Brexit will benefit the UK fishing fleet.

Small-scale fishers make up the majority of the 12,000 fishers in the UK, but often don't have a voice in decision-making. So this summer, we travelled to ports around the UK to talk to them and others and industry about Brexit, and their hopes for the future of UK fishing.

Film courtesy of the New Economics Foundation.