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May 25, 11.30 a.m. TST
EII defends Dolphin Safe label
The World Trade Organization (WTO)’s ruling on ‘Dolphin Safe’ label is "unfortunate, confusing and contradictory," said Mark Berman, director of the international monitoring program, Earth Island Institute.
He was responding to a claim by Mark Robertson, president of Potomac Global Advisors, who said the WTO’s ruling on the dolphin-safe label being a trade barrier was a "victory for the environment and consumers."
Robertson said the label “misled rather than informed” and was inaccurate because it does not provide any certification about mortalities or injuries of dolphins caused in the capture of tuna.
“Dolphin mortality had already dropped 90 percent from 1990, when the program first started as clearly shown on the IATTC website,” said Berman.
“It doesn’t make sense to the world’s tuna markets because consumers do not want tuna that is caught by harming dolphins,” said Berman.
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May 25, 10.22 a.m. TST
What’s the difference between one eco-label from another?
FAO is trying to come up with an evaluation framework to make it easier for companies to choose which eco-label would best suit their company’s needs, said William Emerson, senior fishery industry officer.
The inter-governmental organization is consulting with experts to develop benchmark indicators that will help companies to choose schemes which are consistent with FAO guidelines on eco-labeling.
But efforts have stalled a bit, said Emerson. A meeting in February this year was inconclusive because some parties thought that FAO should assess what these private eco-label schemes, while others thought otherwise.
“As an inter-governmental organization, FAO doesn’t have the responsibility to assess what private schemes are doing, but we hope to provide an evaluation framework soon,” he said.
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May 24, 4.30 p.m. TST
New tuna players shake up Latin America
New tuna players in Latin America have popped up over the last three to four years, but can they succeed in a region where consumers, especially those in Argentina and Brazil, are traditionally red meat eaters?
That was the question posed by Dario Chemerinski, international divisions director of Spanish tuna giant Calvo.
In recent years, Jealsa’s Robinson Crusoe brand has start selling in Argentina and Brazil, newcomers Beira-Mar and Van Camps has also started in Brazil, Gomes da Costa have started in Surinam, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Calvo (which owns Gomes da Costa) has targeted Paraguay, Colombia and even tiny Belize.
“The new players have arrived in the region, with innovative products and distribution techniques,” Chemerinski said.
They have customized their strategies to each country, since understanding consumer habits is key for them to succeed, he said.
For example, it could be knowing that women in Latin America make grocery decisions 80 percent of the time, and making TV ads that inform women about the health benefits for her and her family could help boost sales.
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May 24, 2 p.m. TST
What do immigrants have to do with tuna?
With about 250,000 new immigrants coming into Canada every year, canned tuna companies should take note of this changing demographics, said Ron Schindler, managing director of Clover Leaf Seafoods.
By 2030, Asian immigrants could make up about 60 percent of the total immigrant population, and in light of this, companies could start marketing tuna with an ethnic appeal, and to boost awareness of canned tuna products at the local stores frequented by such immigrants, he said.
The other two demographic groups that companies should take note of are the aging consumers and the shrinking households which contain only one or two family members, he said.
For the older consumers, tuna companies should be promoting canned tuna’s health benefits, while for the smaller households, which tend to eat out more often, companies should promote products that are easy to eat, he said.
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May 24, 3.00 pm TST
Stronger ties between two seafood giants
Thailand and Japan will continue to build stronger trade ties with each other, said Chainintr Chalisarapong, head of the Thai tuna association.
“Since the tsunami last year, Thailand has increased its imports into Japan, and with the recent FTA agreement to bring taxes down to zero percent by next year, seafood trade between the two countries will definitely go up,” he said.
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May 24, 2 p.m. TST
How big can tuna get in Latin America?
Latin America’s potential as a major canned tuna market is ‘real’, said Dario Chemerinski, international divisions director of Spanish tuna giant Calvo.
Even recent M&A activities, such as when Pepsico Brazil sold Coqueiro, the number 2 brand to Camil Alimentos, a rice giant, show that companies see the potential that canned tuna has in the region, he said.
With a combined population of 480 million – 7 percent of global population, and an expected steady GDP growth of 3.8 percent annually, Latin America could see some big tuna eaters.
Consuming 2.5 kg of canned tuna a year, Latin America’s biggest consumer of canned tuna is Ecuador, which also produces and exports canned tuna for many EU markets.
But there is also potential in traditional red meat-eating nations such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, which eat 45 to 55 kilos of red meat and chicken per person annually, Chemerinski said.
Even though consumers in such countries right now eat about 2 to 4 cans of tuna per person in a year, but with the right strategies to market tuna, there is a lot opportunities for growth, he said.
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May 24, 2.30 pm TST
Flashing lights boosts efforts to save bigeye
Looks like a research project using intermittent light flashes to push small bigeye tuna to the wide mesh section of the net is working.
According to the president of Japan's far seas purse seine fishing association, Akira Nakamae, the project has reduced the bycatch of juvenile bigeye by 50 percent in purse seines.
“We will continue efforts to understand how bigeye behavior relates to light, so that we can further reduce bycatch,” Nakamae said.
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May 24, 2.15 pm TST
Salmon outshines tuna in Southeast Asia
The tuna market in Southeast Asia, for both canned and non-canned, is not growing despite increasing incomes in the region, said Fatima Ferdouse, chief of trade promotion for Infofish.
So it’s really not because of the rising canned tuna prices, but the widespread promotion of another premium fish that’s taking up spending dollars: salmon.
“In restaurants, you can see salmon everywhere, it’s becoming a very popular premium fish,” she said.
Middle Eastern tourists inspires ‘Mediterranean’ tuna flavors
An influx of Arab visitors and tourists into Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand has inspired supermarkets to come up with Mediterranean-flavored canned tuna, said Ferdouse.
This group of customers, who stay for three to four months during the summer holidays, are now a popular consumer base for high value canned tuna such as those packed with olives or olive oil.
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May 24, 2 p.m. TST
Calvo expands into Asian markets
Expect to see more Calvo products on supermarket shelves in Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore soon.
The company wants to plant its feet into the growing Asian market, while simultaneously growing its business in Latin America, Calvo’s director of international division, Dario Chemerinski told IntraFish.
The Spanish giant has plans to start selling its products through Dawood, a European product distributor in Singapore, and through the Metro supermarket chains in both Vietnam and Malaysia by the next few months.
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May 24, 1.45 p.m. TST
EU gets tougher on bluefin catchers
EU lawmakers have just approved new rules that cut the quota for bluefin tuna catches in EU waters, but tightening monitoring requirements on vessels, for instance by requiring that all purse seiners have an ICCAT observer on board.
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May 23, 4.30 p.m. TST
Who’s the best in the canned tuna industry?
Thailand still is the best canned tuna producer in the world, said Chanintr Chalisarapong, chairman of Thai Tuna Processors’ Association.
But even the best still has challenges to overcome.
Thailand canneries have to cope with a 35 to 40 percent price increase in raw material, and while consumers can accept the higher prices transferred to them, the key question is how much can they accept, he said.
Also, with a 34 percent wage increase in Thailand, labor-intensive companies have to increase the use of machines to cope, he said.
In the next few years, Thailand, which does not have its own fishing fleets, will have to partner with fishing countries like PNA to ensure a more stable supply.
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May 23, 3.45 p.m. TST
‘Expect M&A trend in canned seafood industry to stay’
M&A will be important in shaping the future of the canned seafood industry, said Grant Lin, vice president of Morgan Stanley Asia.
And it’s not just any kind of M&A. Companies will increasingly look to acquiring premium brands that resonate with the consumer to command higher margins and bigger shelf space, he said.
In the canned seafood industry, there are usually than 10 deals per year, with both strategic players like Thai Union and Dongwon, and private equity firms acquiring companies.
Expect such trends to continue, especially when M&A can provide companies with an expanded global footprint, and more vertical integration, Lin said.
Say hi to Chinese companies in the M&A scene
Seeing more M&A type documents being translated into Mandarin? Then you know that even Chinese players are slowly looking to M&A.
While there is no Chinese presence in the tuna industry, on a broader context of food and beverage, Chinese companies like Bright Foods Group, which recently bought Weetabix and Cofco are more involved in the global M&A scene now, and the trend is here to stay, Lin said.
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May 23, 1.15 pm TST
Sell tuna = being noble?
It’s a noble mission to be in the tuna industry, said Starkist CEO In-soo Cho.
It’s really much more than catching fish and selling for money, because it’s about improving the quality of people’s lives with healthy food, Cho said.
And to meet this mission, companies must look at preserving the tuna population because it is an “economically sound course of action” that can ensure the longevity and survival of the industry, he said.
Also, industry stakeholders like consumers, NGOs and companies themselves cannot have a country-specific or company-specific mindset. They need to work together because tuna is a global fish, he said.
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May 23, 12.30 p.m. TST
Starkist CEO defends Wonderfish campaign
When a member of the audience asked Starkist CEO In-soo Cho about the “unsuccessful” Tuna the Wonderfish campaign, Cho said it was not accurate to label it as such.
He said efforts on the Wonderfish campaign - a joint marketing project started by the three big US brands Chicken of The Sea, Bumble Bee, and Starkist to promote tuna as a healthy product, was reduced due to high raw material prices, and cooperation among the three brands still continues.
Resist 'ridiculously low' prices
“There has been resistance from consumers to buy tuna at higher prices, how do you think canned tuna companies could cope with this?” said Teresita Ladanga, COO of Philippines-based tuna canner Alliance Select International.
“We need to be conscious of how we market such scarce resources,” said Cho, who is hopeful that raw material prices should come down a little. Companies need to resist “ridiculously low” prices, and start treating tuna as a premium product, he said.
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May 23, 12.15 p.m. TST
Fancy an iPad on a fishing vessel?
Could the iPad help out efforts to monitor fish numbers at sea? Well according to Susan Jackson, president of International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), it just might do the trick.
Trained vessel owners can use an ISSF program developed on the iPad as a tool to record fish landings, said Jackson, and this can provide the tuna industry with a better picture of fish numbers.
The iPad project is part of ISSF’s aims to have stronger monitoring methods so that Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMO) can have access to better data.
“This can contribute towards creating an integrated data network, where vessel owners are trained to use technology to form a new type of database,” Jackson said.
“It could be the power to change industry management,” she said.
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