Training of Trainers - Library - Network of Aquaculture Centres in ...

Market, Certification and Traceability: Emerging requirements for internationalmarketsKoji YamamotoNetwork of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, Suraswadi Building,Department of Fisheries, Kasetsart University CampusBangkok 10900, ThailandAbstractGeneral trend of consumers is to eat more seafood for better health, however the economic recession is changingthe trends of seafood consumption towards more cheap commodities and products.Increasing concern of market and consumers towards food safety and sustainability of aquaculture productsresulted in demanding traceable products and setting various measures and standards by government, retailersand certification schemes.It is challenging situation for small scale aquaculture sector, but some of the successful models starting to showthat clustered/organised group of farmer can access the better market through innovative and collectiveapproaches.Market and Consumer TrendsGlobal economic recession appears to be responsible for altering global seafood market and seafoodconsumption patterns, particularly visible in the major seafood importing country such as EU and USA. Generallyspeaking, price of seafood is lower than 2008 and there is a consumption shift towards lower price commodities,and this can be observed as a downwards trends of import volume of high value commodities (Table 1) andincreasing volume of non high price commodities such as Pangasius and tilapia (Table 2). However, it is importantto note that consumption of seafood as a whole is in increasing trends, most likely due to increased healthconscious consumer, Japanese food boom, and result of recent several food safety scares (i.e. BSE, bird flu).Table 1: EU shrimp import, Globefish July 2009Table 2: US Tilapia import, Globefish July 2009The common concern in fishery sectors are 1) Sustainability of capture fisheries & aquaculture, 2) Role ofaquaculture in food security and 3) Social impacts and environmental sustainability of commercial or industrialaquaculture. Market and consumers are therefore trying to source the products and production processes thatensure “Sustainability, Safety, Quality, and Equity”.115