The decline of trout aquaculture in the United Kingdom is in stark contrast to the growth of the country’s booming salmon sector and could disappear entirely within the next 20 years if it doesn’t reinvent itself, suggests research conducted by Dimitar Taskov from the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling.
By far the biggest cause of trout’s demise is the shrinking consumer demand for its main product – whole, portion-sized fish of less than 500 grams, and Taskov told the recent World Seafood Congress 2017 in Iceland that the customer base for such formats is shrinking because changing preferences mean they no longer find this type of presentation attractive. Furthermore, the main market group for trout are older generations that are used to and prepared to cook whole fish.
“Today’s consumers are looking for convenience, not whole fish,” he said, adding that the strong competition that’s coming from salmon is also “eating away” at the trout market.
Another problem for the U.K. trout industry is it is very fragmented, composed of more than 300 small-scale companies, which is a very different story from the very consolidated and competitive salmon sector. Consequently, trout producers have little cost advantage or bargaining power, he said.
“If the decline continues, we believe there won’t be any trout in the U.K. market within 17 years. And that trend is not just in the United Kingdom, it can be seen in lots of other European countries too," Taskov said.
However, Taskov said that there has been some effort on behalf of the producers to keep the sector alive, and while whole portion-sized fish continues to dominate sales, one segment to have grown in the background is large trout – fish bigger than 1 kg.
U.K. production of these larger trout was about 1,000 metric tons (MT) in the mid-90s but has climbed to about 5,000 MT today, with increased demand coming from U.K retail, foodservice and smokeries, as well as overseas markets.
The fish are being grown in sea lochs to sizes of 3 to 4 kilograms and even up to 8 kg, said Taskov. Contributing to this particular growth are technologies and production methods adopted from the salmon industry, as well as expertise from people who have worked in the salmon sector.
There is much more scope for value addition and marketing with these larger fish, he said. It has also been evidenced that some consumers have interchanged between salmon and trout because of their visible similarities, and in some instances the trout have even been marketed as “salmon trout.”
“There is a new door opening to trout here – through access to the established U.K. salmon market – to overcome some of the obstacles that the trout industry is facing," he said. “Many [shoppers] believe trout is another kind of salmon and it’s priced very similarly.”
Moving forward, the two main options open to U.K. trout companies are to establish a differentiation strategy incorporating branding and potentially switch to the production of larger fish, said Taskov.
