An outbreak of COVID-19 linked to the Xinfadi market in Beijing has thus far sickened more than 130 people, and public concern that it may be linked to imported salmon has significantly disrupted seafood imports into China.
Tests of employees and the environment at the Xinfadi market revealed one positive test from a sample taken from a cutting board used for fileting salmon. In response, China halted shipments of salmon from Europe and Chinese senior officials issued statements urging consumers to avoid eating raw salmon.
Trade groups representing major seafood importers into China have responded quickly with a campaign to quell the panic spreading in the country in regard to imported seafood. In recent days, the Global Salmon Initiative has been one of many seafood organizations issuing statements in regard to Beijing’s COVID-19 outbreak.
“Seafood, like any other surface, may potentially become contaminated if adequate food handling and sanitation measures are not in place, or when handled by an infected person,” it said. “All of GSI’s member companies are committed to the strictest hygiene measures to ensure the safety of their products. During the COVID-19 pandemic, GSI members have implemented additional measures to keep employees, as well as their salmon products safe.”
Working with Chinese authorities, officials from Norway announced on Wednesday, 17 June, they had concluded that salmon from Norway had not been the source of the coronavirus found on the cutting boards at Xinfadi.
“We can clear away uncertainty,” Norwegian Fisheries and Seafood Minister Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen said during a video conference, according to The New York Times.
However, the Chinese market has essentially closed to salmon from Europe, according to executives at several salmon suppliers.
“We can’t send any salmon to China now, the market is closed,” Bakkafrost CEO Regin Jacobsen told Reuters. China receives around 20 percent of Bakkafrost’s fresh salmon exports, he said.
“We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified,” Norway Royal Salmon Head of Sales and Marketing Stein Martinsen told the South China Morning Post.
In Beijing, Japanese-style restaurants were the hardest-hit, with several reporting significant drops in customers, and some switching menus over to feature cooked food, according to the South China Morning Post. But fears of a link between COVID-19 and salmon have spread across China and are now seriously affecting sales of all imported seafood.
Hong Kong’s Food Safety Consortium announced the city’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department had taken samples of salmon imported from countries including Norway, Iceland, Chile, Ireland, and Denmark and that all 16 samples had tested negative for the coronavirus. Nonetheless, the consortium’s head, Terence Lau Lok-ting, said Beijing was justified in halting salmon imports, according to The New York Times.
“From a scientific perspective, it is appropriate to isolate salmon imports … and conduct necessary testing,” he said.
The biggest impact of the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing will continue to be on live rather than frozen imported seafood, according to Fan Xubing, head of Beijing-based seafood marketing agency Seabridge.
“I [have] contacted several seafood buyers of different major retailers in China. Few of them said they will delist the imported seafood from their shelves of that they will stop the promotion," he told SeafoodSource.
But there will be an impact on species other than salmon.
"I think live and fresh seafood like salmon, lobster, king crab, Dungeness crab, brown crab, etcetera will be more affected than frozen seafood. All seafood wholesale markets in Beijing have been closed, and the Beijing market will suffer more compared with other cities,” Fan said. “Monitoring of restaurants is becoming more serious and this will influence consumers dining in restaurants."
But Fan said he believes that market impact outside of Beijing will be largely "psychological," whereas the capital will see more "physical" cautions such as health checks, enforced distancing, and market lockdowns.
"I know Canadian live lobster export to China has been affected and importers reduced the order," Fan said.
Geoff Irvine, head of the Lobster Council of Canada, confirmed that fact.
"Our members have been impacted by the implementation of random testing of food and seafood in Beijing and possibly other cities," Irvine told SeafoodSource.
After expressing optimism not long ago about a return to normal for his sales to China, Irish oyster exporter Des Moore said the fallout from the latest COVID outbreak in Beijing has been harmful.
"The damage done to seafood from Europe is going to take time to repair,” he told SeafoodSource. “Indeed, the validity of trying to save top-quality big oysters for this market is questionable. [There are] too many variables to prevent it being a regular reliable earner."
However, information campaigns initiated this week by Western export nations seems to be restoring some confidence to the Chinese market.
"We are working with all government departments, provinces, and other trade organizations to provide information to the Chinese authorities that this testing is unnecessary, as there is no scientific link between seafood products and the coronavirus,” Moore said.
The message may be getting through. Fan Xubing noted that China’s food inspection authority has announced that after inspecting the samples from the markets, it doesn’t have any evidence that imported salmon can carry coronavirus.
A statement from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has noted that "there is no scientific evidence that food is a likely source or route of transmission of the virus and there have been no confirmed cases of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19.”
Drew Thompson, director for China in the Pentagon from 2011 to 2018 and now a research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, posted on Twitter that he believed the panic is partly the fault of Chinese officials, who have sought to blame other countries for the recent outbreak.
“Blaming this on foreign forces that got through their screen is a palatable option for them,” he said. He described the blaming of the virus’ spread on imported salmon as a form of “xenopescophobia, the fear of foreign fish.”
Photo courtesy of InkheartX/Shutterstock
