New aquaculture species. Entering the whitefish market

,Aquaculture; whitefish; pangasius; tilapia

New aquaculture species: Market incentives and barriers for growth

During the last decade, several new aquaculture species like tilapia and pangasius has appeared in significant quantities, and growth for more traditional species like shrimp and salmon continues at high rates. This has led to and will continue to lead to significant changes in the world's seafood markets. As this process unfolds, there are number of interesting issues with respect to which market is served and where a species is successful. For instance, at first glance there seems no reason why tilapia should be very successful in the USA but not in Europe, while it is the other way around for pangasius. In this presentation we will give an overview of the situation for farmed finfish species today. This includes salmon, trout, seabass, seabream, pangasius, catfish, tilapia and Nile perch. Several other species are being farmed in smaller scales like cod, grouper, kobia and halibut, species that are not commercially interesting at this point but that have a significant potential. The new species will however most likely meet the same challenges as some of the other farmed species. We will investigate similarities and differences in how the species are being introduced and sold in different markets. In particular, while the buyers always are interested in good products at competitive prices, the established producers rarely welcome competing products. Sometimes this only result in tougher competition in the market, while there has also been a number of trade conflicts and restrictions on market access