Tilapia is indigenous to Africa - yet the continent produced only a small percentage of tilapia’s estimated 3 million tonne global supply in 2009, whilst Asia produced around 75%. Africa’s share of global fish production has remained at 4.2% for 10 years, substantially below its potential. Aquaculture already supplies nearly half the world’s seafood consumed by humans; at 51.7 million tonnes in 2006 and can be expected to reach 50% in the next few years. With declining wild stocks and an increasing human population, sustainable aquaculture can - and must –help to meet growing demand.
This project, implemented by New England Seafood, Lake Harvest Aquaculture in Zimbabwe and Waitrose aims to help springboard tilapia into the UK market and the sales evidence (only 2% of UK households buying tilapia at present) points to this being the right moment in time for it. Tilapia will through the project reach a wider consumer base and be a more presentable product, which will support its growth in the UK market. The growth will open opportunities for other African tilapia farmers to enter the field and to access higher value markets.
The project is working to augment the highest fish welfare, environmental and ethical standards during rearing and the most humane slaughter methods possible. Lake Harvest already meets these high standards but aims for continual improvement. The process of harvest through slaughtering is being studied by the steering committee and experts as necessary in the fields of welfare, husbandry and quality, with particular focus on improved humane killing methods. A report will be prepared highlighting the issues and ideas on how to address them, and successful ideas will then be implemented through a series of trials. The outcome of the trials will be evaluated and beneficial findings will be implemented.
Using Waitrose’s expertise is absolutely key to developing consumer awareness of the benefits of tilapia. They have the stores, the shoppers, the media vehicles, the scale, and crucially can secure the backing of Celebrity Chefs. When a Chef/ TV celebrity endorses a recipe or a product in public, a massive surge in sales, including repeat-purchasers, can result. Marketing on a scale not yet attempted for tilapia in the UK will be undertaken. It may include: celebrity chefs, press advertorials, instore recipe cards and deep discount price promotions, and point of sale information. Value added products are proven to entice new consumers to fish partly because of the added value flavours and such products can encourage those afraid of cooking fish or a new species to try it.
Another key area is to improve quality assurance and achieve the lowest impact on the environment during transportation through better logistics. The project is devising ways develop the logistics chain from harvest to point of sale with a view to reviewing and improving quality at every step and reducing carbon impacts where that quality will not be compromised. Mastering deep temperature freezing is critical to this vision: a) to maintain the fresh red bloodline in the fish to maximise instore visual and quality appeal, b) to allow us to build large stocks of product ready in the freezer to satisfy a massive spike in demand during marketing plus much higher ongoing sales, c) to replace fresh airfreight with frozen sea-freight transport: not only because environmental benefits but also to reduce the cost of the product significantly, to help afford the marketing plan and reduce prices so keeping momentum on sales.
Finally the project will, principally with the retailer’s training department, devise and implement a tilapia training module to provide knowledge on all the positive attributes of tilapia to help promote sales and awareness. The project will also develop expertise at Lake Harvest by drawing on lessons learned on tilapia production and distribution systems in use in the main production centres in Central America and Asia where intensive tilapia farming and experience is much more common than in Africa.
Bookmark with:
What are Bookmarks?