| Future
of Aquaculture
Fish farming and related issues
Get ready for big shifts in public opinion - for example over
the pigmentation they want to see in fish farmed salmon.
(Article from Aquavision Magazine 2002)
As Europe's leading futurist,
Dr. Patrick Dixon has plenty
to tell on the pitfalls and opportunities that will face the aquaculture
sector over the coming decade. At this summers AquaVision 2002 Conference
(Nutreco sponsor) Dr. Dixon will be setting the scene for delegates
at the conference and in his opening
key note speech be aiming to provide them with a framework to
think about for the future, not just for today's issues but a framework
that will work for them for the next 10-20 years.
Press here
for slides of presentation
Dr Dixon told Aquavision:
"Without a doubt the aquaculture industry is going to be effected
by many different complex trends over the coming years, all operating
together, sometimes in very unexpected ways and producing changes
in the industry that may be very rapid indeed.
The
ability of the aquaculture industry to foresee and react to these
trends and changes is of vital importance to the future development
and success of the sector." he explained.
"The aquaculture
industry is at a crucial point. On the one hand wild fish stocks
are vulnerable already to overfishing.On the other hand, research papers show quite clearly that
red meat eaters can be risking their own health while fish eaters
are helping to ensure themselves a long life. The aquaculture sector
has grown substantially over recent years and holds the potential
to satisfy the growing demand for fish from both developed and developing
markets. The aquaculture industry also protects wild fish stocks
from pressures of overfishing.
"This is all
good news for the industry," points out Dr. Dixon, "However, there
is a requirement for ever increasing transparency in all aspects
of aquaculture production. We have all seen the effects that a single
camera with 5 minutes of footage from the sea bed beneath ½ million
caged fish can have when shown on one program, on one TV network.
Power to produce significant changes in share prices and to with
long lasting effects on consumer behavior.
"An increasingly
fussy consumer population is one of the realities the industry will
have to face in future.
"We are entering
a world where, in the past, food was a necessity but also something
of a luxury. Food like salmon is a good example of this: 20-30 years
ago it was a luxury food but new technology and increasing affluence
in the western world means that more people can afford to go up
market in their quest for ever better food.
"The starving man is not worried about pigments or fish feed dyes
and additives used to colour farmed salmon - he will just eat it.
But to a 75 year old pensioner with no money worries and for whom
food is a real pleasure it can become very, very important. It may
well be that he decides not to eat salmon at all because he has
heard that there are pigments and other additives used in production.
(Note: since this was written, new laws have been approved in Europe
to reduce and stop EU fish feed dyes used to make farmed salmon
look pink.)
Dr. Dixon sees
a market that is going to experience increased segmentation in coming
years. "In developed countries," he explained, "we are going to
see increasing food fads that will be exaggerated by every health
scare. Health scares will be hyped up by neuroticism. Wealthy people
have an emotional connection people with food that you do not see
in a poor country in the same way."
"Yet emerging markets are tremendous growth opportunities. Emotional sensitivities
are less but people aspire to western life styles. For example,
consumption of red meat per person is falingl in the wealthiest
countries, particularly in higher income brackets. Whereas in China
and India consumption of red meat is rising significantly because,
in these countries, those who eat red meat see it as a sign of being
'middle class'. The same applies for fish and so very significant
differences exist between these markets. Nevertheless, the challenge
is that in a globalised world the same products can find themselves
in just about any market worldwide
"A company who
is producing low cost fish for the Indian market in sub-optimal
conditions could well find that their whole product image is damaged
in western markets where separate fish farms are producing fish
in optimal conditions. The whole process could be questioned as
a result of doubtful practices in poorer nations.
"Many
companies and organisations are facing this problem right now and
some are pulling out of emerging markets altogether because they
can't see how they can sell competitively in a market where standards
are much lower without jeopardizing the quality for which their
brand is known in the rest of the world."
Patrick
Dixon's comments are drawn from a vast experience in advising
some of the world's largest corporations as well as finding
himself one of the world's most sought after
conference speakers.
To
assist with a framework for companies to assess the challenges facing
them over the coming decade Dr. Dixon has in his most recent book,
'Futurewise', described
a complex range of urgent issues under six headings, or faces of
a cube, spelling the word FUTURE.
Fast: Speed of change , economic,
social, technology or political. As we saw on 11 Sept 2001 with
the attacks on the WTC in New York,
how people feel about the world can change profoundly in 15
minutes. Market research can't
predict the future in a rapidly changing world - it just tells
you what consumers think now. We need big vision to see further.
The digital society, networking, e-commerce,
virtual reality, and
speech recognition - the impact of these things is also continuing
to change consumer behavior despite market hype and gloom. The death
of traditional markets, national
stock exchanges and
financial services. Future revolutions in production, distribution
and every aspect of management. How will people survive this accelerating
change?
Urban:
There will continue to be over the coming years big demographic
and social shifts affecting every aspect of consumer behavior for
the increasingly ageing but wealthy populations. The war for talent,
feminisation of society, megacities and a host of other factors
will also have an important effect on the markets for your products.
The challenge of megacities in emerging economies. These society
changes are fundamental to the future shape of your business.
Tribal:
Although the world is increasingly globalised, tribalism is the
most powerful force on earth. More powerful than atomic bombs
or the combined might of the US, Russian and Chinese military. We
see it around the world in 100s of tribal conflicts and tensions.
Tribalism is also a huge positive force. It affects you through
niche branding and product loyalty, just think of Coca-Cola, McDonalds
or Nike. Every successful product creates a tribe and every successful
organisation is one. Tribalism is important in marketing and leadership,
it can be harnessed to build strong teams, corporate identity, people
movements and product lines. The key to mergers is understanding
tribal culture and tribal leadership.
Universal:
is the opposite of tribalism, the emergence of the global super-brand
and huge pressures to manage global operations more effectively,
using new technologies, emergence of virtual teams and companies.
Globalisation will alter the shape of all large corporations as
competitors realign through rapid mergers, acquisitions, disposals
or new partnerships. This is very topical for the aquaculture industry
with the emergence of companies such as Nutreco which now assists
the production of a significant proportion of the world's farmed
salmon production . However, reactions to globalisation in
its current form need to be understood. Why powerful global
structures will emerge and how they will affect your future.
Radical:
Again this is of particularly importance in the food industry. With
the death of normal left/right political structures and the weakening
of government power, corporations are increasingly vulnerable to
a growing number of single issue groups, the membership of groups
like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, for instance, have risen
dramatically. Never has it been more difficult than in the area
of food manufacturing and one only has to think of the situation
faced last year by the Scottish salmon farmers following the screening
of aBBCC documentary criticising salmon farming.
We can expect
to see logic replaced by emotion, science replaced by feeling. There
has been ample recent evidence of this in relation to food scares,
every consumer worry becomes a regulation and every consumer campaign
becomes a new law especially in food.
Even where there
are no laws these campaigns can produce a profound shift in the
behavior of food manufacturers, take the case with
Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs. In the UK many supermarkets
decided to put a voluntary ban on the sale of GM foods even though
they were not required to do so by the government by preferred to
run ahead of consumers option.
As Swiss
banks found with Nazi gold, Shell found with oil rig dumping and
Nestle found with baby milk products, these issues can strike hard
and their impact can be hard to predict.
Ethical:
Is perhaps the most important aspect of all. Ethics is to do with
personal values relating to how we want to live in this world and
what kind of world we want to live in. A topical example is genetically
modified plants and animals such as GM modified salmon. With salmon
that have been produced that contain human genes and that can grow
to four times the size of non-GM salmon in a farm in 12 months,
the big question is do people want to eat them?
This is an ethical
issue and ethics decides what people get stirred up about and how
people want to live in a fast changing world. Ethicsis very, very important and we are currently seeing a very
big shift in people's ethics, e.g., people feel very differently
now about what work they do compared to 10 years ago, in other words
peoples work/life balance has become very important. People have
become more sensitized to ethical issues than they were 15 years
ago, issues like motivation, spirituality are all becoming key issues
in large corporations.
Retaining and
motivating key executives means more than money. Companies need
to consider how to inspire and encourage, how to build a sense of
family. What is coming next? Where do corporate values come from?
A new world order. Global ethics. This, Dr. Dixon considers
to be the most important Face of the cube and the one that is becoming
central in board discussions on future direction. Personal
motivation has changed greatly in the last five years and will continue
to do so. The key is being able to show how your products
and services create a better kind of world, not only for individual
people and their families, but also for the community and for the
whole of humanity.
Those
that will be able to say that their product is more 'natural' than
their competitors may well win a significant share at the top end
of the market.
"When you put
these six phases together and 'spin the cube' Dr. Dixon continued,
"you get some quite startling results and all participants at AquaVision
will find particular bells ringing for them. This is my primary
aim, to scene set for the participants in the aquaculture industry
and give them a framework to think about for the future, not just
for today's issues but a framework that will work for them for the
next 10-20 years."
As a closing
message Patrick Dixon advices to "keep the image clean, to take
the high morale ground, to be better than the best, to be more ethical
than ethical, more natural than natural and to go one step further
than the consumers are currently demanding."
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