Caught mainly in mixed fisheries, hake (Merluccius merluccius) is one of the most important demersal fish stocks in EU waters in terms of landed volumes, yet demand for this whitefish remains almost entirely led by a few core southern European markets.
There are two separate stocks of hake in EU waters. The northern stock is the most abundant and is found in the North Sea, Skagerrak, and off the Atlantic coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland and France, while the smaller southern stock is located off the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal. For 2014, the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) recommended total allowable catches (TACs) of 81,800 metric tons (MT) for the northern stock and 16,266 MT for the southern stock.
The northern stock has grown significantly in recent years with the spawning biomass estimated to have reached a record high in 2013, and yet it’s still a fairly niche product — even in those countries that are landing much more of it. Nowhere is this trait more pronounced than in the United Kingdom, where fishermen landed 12,000 metric tons (MT) of hake last year, but just 1.5 percent of it was consumed in that market. Most U.K. hake is traditionally exported to Spain, where it’s estimated the consumption of the product — known locally as “la merluza” — stood at 6 kilograms (kg) per capita last year. Portugal is another important export market for U.K.-landed hake.
For 2014, U.K. fishermen were given a catch quota close to 18,000 MT, representing a year-on-year increase of 49 percent. Unfortunately, they have also seen a downturn in the Spanish export trade as a result of the country’s continuing economic woes. Together these factors have resulted in much more hake remaining available to the U.K. market.
In an attempt to get more Brits eating hake, the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations (NFFO) has this year been telling the market that it is now the country’s “most sustainable and plentiful fish,” following an evaluation of stock and catch data against a criteria of 10 industry sustainability markers. The trade body that represents fishermen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, also brought in a PR company and the celebrity fish chef, restaurateur and author Mitch Tonks to further spread the word.
While one leading U.K. whitefish trader told SeafoodSource that colleagues in the sector are skeptical about the validity of the NFFO’s bold claim, it’s generally agreed the organization’s intentions are in the right place and also that science has confirmed hake stock levels are indeed very healthy.
Even though the product should tick many consumer boxes, recent research conducted on behalf of the NFFO found just 53 percent of U.K. fish-eaters had ever tried hake. The three leading reasons for this poor performance were: retail price — 30 percent of those polled; appearance — 24 percent; and lack of availability in supermarkets — 11 percent.
While there’s not a lot that can be done by the seafood industry to win over those consumers who don’t like the way hake looks, the NFFO hopes that its campaign twinned with the greater abundance will see it become more attractively priced and more widely available to shoppers.
However, any shift will be slow due to the high volumes of cod and haddock available to the market, cautioned the trader.
On the basis of the EU’s new maximum sustainable yield (MSY) approach, ICES has advised that landings of the northern and southern hake stocks in 2015 should not exceed 78,457 MT and 8,417 MT, respectively.
