Production system characteristics

Salmonid case study includes a large diversity of species. I gather commonly called salmons such as Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) or Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), trouts such as rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) or Fario trout (Salmo trutta) and other salmon-ids such as Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus). Most of the salmonids that are sold on the EU market come from aquaculture, especially Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout, which are the main farmed fish species in Northern Europe.

Market

The salmonids market presents a wide range of species and products. Salmonids can be marketed as whole fresh, sliced fresh or processed (mainly smoked)…

The supply and demand of farmed salmon have been steadily growing in the EU. However, most of the salmon is imported to EU from Norway, while the aquaculture sector within the EU is facing many challenges to remain profitable and match the growing demand.

The actual challenges influencing the competitiveness and the sustainability of the sector that European salmonid producers are facing are:

• Competition with other products and imports from countries with lower production costs (Norwegian and Chilean salmons, Turkish trout…)
• Competition for space and use-conflicts with other activities (professional and recreational fishing, fluvial or marine transportation, river water-sharing issues, natural reserves…)
• Linked to the previous challenge but also to the growing legal standards for animal welfare and health, and hygienic control of epidemics need, producers are facing administrative burden.
• Emerging consumers’ demand for healthy and/or environmental friendly products represents a strong opportunity of market valorisation.
• Competitive production technologies: production methods and operational innovations to utilise increased production opportunities.

Therefore, it is highly important to find new innovative solutions to enable environmentally and economically sustainable production growth in the EU aquaculture sector.

SUCCESS' objectives

The main objective of SUCCESS concerning the salmonids case study is to explore how EU and Icelandic salmonids production and regulations should be developed in the global competition to enable environmental-friendly profitable growth of the aquaculture sector for the needs of consumers.

Products studied

According to the diversity, the Salmonid case study will not provide an exhaustive representation of that picture but will focus on products which illustrate the issues and challenges (presented below) :

• Large rainbow trout, known as salmon trout, is one of the major fish species in aquaculture, fish processing and trade in Finland and Sweden. Salmon trout together with farmed Atlantic salmon are the most important farmed fish species in the Nordic fish market. Furthermore the case study will analyze rainbow trout production and value chains in important countries in Central and South Europe like Italy, France, Denmark, Poland and Germany ; and in Finland.
• Icelandic farmed Arctic char, a species well adapted to cold environment and has therefore been assumed to be a good choice for fish farming in Iceland but faces competition with salmon and trout on the global market.
• Atlantic salmon in Scotland, which represents between 36 to 40% of the Scottish seafood production and counts for 97% of the national aquaculture production.

• The “Salmonid” case study in the workpackages (coming soon)
• Results for “Salmonid” case study (coming soon)
• News, events and conferences related to the “Salmonid” case study (coming soon)