Fishmongers: A Fractious Bunch
Fishmongers: A Fractious Bunch
By Richard Stavis
Fishmongers are a secretive bunch, who primarily do not work well in groups. Why is this the case? It probably has to do with the sheer diversity of products, harvest methods, and regions of production, all of which limit consolidation in the industry and create small groups of marketers who are working at cross purposes.
This isolated approach is the opposite of what we see with most major protein food groups, where the heavy hitter producers hang together. For example, in the milk industry suppliers contributed hard earned money to pay for the famously successful “Got Milk?” campaign. While merchants might fight about whether Garelick Farms is better than Hood, they all work together and collectively reap the benefits. Want a couple more examples? Do any of you remember when James Garner said “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner”? Maybe you’ve heard of “the incredible, edible egg” or been tempted to eat “the other white meat”? These promotional campaigns are all great examples of companies putting aside their differences to promote their industry as a whole.
We had the opportunity to do the same to promote seafood, but we blew it.
The National Seafood Marketing Council was established on December 7, 1989 under the Fish and Seafood Promotion Act of 1986 (16 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.) to help the seafood industry promote the consumption of domestically harvested seafood. The Council was meant to act as an independently managed group representative of the seafood industry and funded by an industry wide assessment made at point of harvest or point of import. The Federal Government even primed the program with money; some of it paid for national televisions ads. The ads featured the national “Spokesfish”, a “Sturgeon General” who extolled the benefits of the wide variety of flavorful and healthy seafood. So what happened? The industry took the government money but voted against a mandatory assessment at the first receiver level when the money ran out. The council was eventually disbanded.
What are the chances of getting a council together now? Virtually nil. We’re unlikely to see federal seed money to start this off again. Additionally, the industry is so diverse that it’s doubtful that we could get enough of the major players together to make anything happen. This is a real shame. Our products are often under attack by well funded special interest groups that put out a stream of negative information about seafood, frequently focused on health and sustainability. Is the information true? Some of it is factually true, but it’s often given out of context or without a counterbalance. For example, mercury is an issue in some seafood, but not all. Consumers don’t understand how mercury affects their health. As a result many adopt a “zero tolerance” approach and avoid species that contain mercury or even worse, all fish. The benefits of eating seafood regularly outweigh the potential negative effects of the occasional consumption of seafood with mercury. Similarly, the plethora of organizations promoting sustainability in seafood to the general public give a confusing mass of information that is often contradictory. Some over generalize (looking at species instead of fisheries) and steer customers to a narrow band of a few species of seafood, suggesting that those are the only fish that may be eaten. Why do they do this? In some instances product doesn’t meet their narrow definition of the word “sustainable” because of environmental effects rather than endangered fisheries. In other instances the fishery just simply isn’t big enough to get on a top ten list. The end result is still that customers are not comfortable eating sustainably harvested fish because of a lack of information.
What can we do? Get the facts and communicate them as much as we can. Offer our customers true, useful information. Make responsible decisions about seafood by knowing enough about what we’re buying and selling to justify our actions. Band together where possible, either along location, species sold, or with wider industry based organizations. We are stronger together than apart!