Tastings this week in Shanghai offered by COFCO Fine Foods – a division of the huge state-owned foods conglomerate – introduced Chinese consumers to “qing hua yu” (scumber scombrus) – mackerel shipped in by COFCO’s partner, Bergen, Norway-based Pelagia AS.
The tasting is further evidence of Norway's efforts to push into the upscale domestic Chinese market with its whitefish offerings. However, its efforts could be thwarted by confusion over the names of the new seafood products being sold in China.
The Pacific variety of mackerel is already well-known to Chinese customers but is customarily referred to in supermarkets in Beijing visited by SeafoodSource as “qing yu” (Pneumatophorus japonicas). However, during a “qing hua yu” shopping visit to the busy state-owned Jingkelong supermarket in the residential neighborhood of Tuanjiehu in Beijing, instead of scumber scombrus, vendors pointed to trays of chilled Pneumatophorus japonicas, selling for CNY 21 (USD 3.12, EUR 2.77) per kilogram.
“Mackerel is not familiar to Chinese consumers,” a Pelagia AS statement announcing the partnership with COFCO last autumn noted.
Mackerel appears to be the latest marketing project for the Norwegian Seafood Council in China. Having almost single-handedly created a market in China for salmon, the NSC in recent years has expended a effort in China to create a lucrative niche for cod using terms like “Norwegian cod” and “Arctic cod,” allowing Norwegian exports to take premium prices in upmarket Chinese food and beverage and retail outlets.
China’s salmon market has been beset by naming issues, with a single Mandarin name being used to sell both trout and salmon under the lucrative “salmon” moniker.
Pelagia has chosen a heavy-hitting partner to push its mackerel. With assets at home and around the world in everything from oilseeds to vineyards and commercial real estate, COFCO has long proclaimed its ambition to be China’s equivalent of U.S. agricultural trading giant Cargill.
