A veteran seafood marketing expert has expressed doubts about plans to grow salmon in China and the growing popularity of recirculating aquaculture system aquaculture.
Fan Xubing, the CEO of Seabridge, a Beijing-based marketing consultancy that advises international clients on local sales, said efforts to upgrade Chinese aquaculture systems should be focused producing species that are already popular in the country.
“China just doesn't need to develop both RAS and [submersible] net-farming for salmon, because China's salmon consumption is only 100,000 tons, less than 5 percent of global salmon farming production,” Fan said. “China needs to farm local species which are suitable to local temperature and environment.
Fan expressed skepticism over Nordic Aqua Partners’ plan to build an RAS farm in Ningbo capable of producing 20,000 metric tons of salmon per year by 2027. The project’s backers include aquafeed firm Nutreco.
“There are several RAS projects ready to enter into China, not only Nordic Aqua … RAS technology has not been stable enough for large-scale salmon farming," Fan told SeafoodSource. "Nutreco previous[ly] invested in a shrimp feed mill in China but they failed. I don't know if their RAS investment in China could be successful or not. I suggest Nutreco should just focus on aquafeed.”
Nordic Aqua Partners CEO Ove Nodland previously told SeafoodSource his company estimates China’s salmon consumption to at least double to 200,000 MT by 2025. The company recently raised EUR 55.1 million (USD 66.7 million) in a private placement that attracted strong interest from Norwegian and international investors.
But Fan thinks Nutreco’s ambition for Ningbo is “too big and I don't think they could manage.”
“Large Chinese aquafeed companies like Tongwei, Haida, Dabeinong, Hengxing, [and] Yuehai play much better than Nutreco in China,” he said. “Why don't they invest in RAS?”
Fan also criticized efforts to farm salmon in offshore cages in the Yellow Sea. In 2016, Rizhao Res Mo Ze Feng Yu Ye Ltd Co. announced a plan to open a salmon farm off the Rizhao coastline in the Yellow Sea, the stretch of water connecting China and the Korean Peninsula. Then in 2017, the Chinese government backed the Yellow Sea Cold Water Group Green Aquaculture Science and Technology Innovation Project, which is raising salmon 100 miles off of China’s east coast.
But those efforts have also stuttered, according to Fan.
“Yellow Sea submarine net-farming has not been very successful,” he said. “Only less than 1,000 tons salmon and trout has been produced from this system.”
Fan said salmon exporters need to spend more money on marketing in China if the market for salmon is to grow.
“Norwegian Seafood Council has stopped consumer education in China since 2010,” he said. “How could you expect Chinese salmon consumption could continue to increase? Salmon Chile and Scottish Development International only do some trade education in China to get market share from Norwegian salmon … Nobody really cares about consumers and consumer education in the past 10 years.”
Photo courtesy of Fan Xubing/LinkedIn
