ACRUNET group meets in Bristol

Norah Parke, Network Coordinator

Seafish, the agency that works with the UK seafood industry to promote good quality, sustainable seafood, and which is a prominent player in the ACRUNET network, hosted the seventh ACRUNET Partners Meeting in Bristol in October.

Addressing the delegates at the opening session, Marcus Jacklin (Seafish) observed that another major achievement had been the “high level of collaboration and cooperation displayed between partners”.

He added that the value of the network had developed and progressed its stakeholder-wide role at group level rather than partners following narrower objectives at individual level. This resulted in a collaborative platform which enabled discussions and initiatives to be developed in a very effective and cooperative fashion that could, potentially, be adopted by other regional groups.

Brown crab fishermen from the UK, Ireland and France were well represented and brought real, hands-on experience to the discussions. Their input is vitally important to the work of ACRUNET; there is considerable over-lap in the crab industry between fishermen, transporters, exporters and the processing sector and these operators are constantly aware of the knock-on effect of change in the various elements of the product chain.

Creating a certifiable transnational standard that could assure consumers regarding the credentials of brown crab was a primary objective of ACRUNET. Building on the existing national seafood standards* of the partner countries, the meeting was informed that nearly 40 crabbers throughout Ireland, the UK and France, have been audited to the ACRUNET Brown Crab Standard.

The next step will be to ensure that this hard work is put to good use by promoting this certification in the market place. The very interesting and practical work being carried out by the industry analysis team continues to drill deeper into consumer attitudes. They have also identified a number of issues that could impact negatively on consumer reactions such as media coverage of sustainability and health topics.

There was agreement that industry needs to be equipped to respond in a rational and open manner when such situations arise; the response of industry needs to be consistent and well-informed. The promotional materials developed by ACRUNET have an important role to play and are already being deployed in France which continues to be the single largest market for brown crab.

The product format is very important but there is considerable variation in what appeals to the consumer from country to country. ACRUNET has produced a detailed report on the types of presentation and there are plans to follow-up with trials in Spain which has, up to now, been primarily interested in the more basic product such as live or cooked and frozen.

Partners have continued to look at ways to improve transport, particularly live crab, and continued progress has been made on efficiency measures that will reduce the quantity of water needed for live transport.

There are also on-going studies, again in Spain, on waste utilisation where composting samples have been analysed to ensure a successful implementation of the commercial scale trial. Developing a workable and acceptable management system for brown crab fisheries, particularly in the UK and Ireland, remains a major challenge for all stakeholders.

In France, where there has been a long-established permit system, it is less of a problem but issues such as latent effort continue to hinder progress elsewhere. Lack of consistent data has been identified as a crucial stumbling-block to headway in this vital area.

ACRUNET science partners have been gathering the relevant data and plan to meet with industry partners in early 2015 to discuss future options.

This is the final year of ACRUNET and many of the objectives of the project are achieved or will be achieved in the near future. It is vital that this information reaches all those stakeholders who can benefit from it.

In the course of its work, ACRUNET has also identified other areas that need to be followed up. The partners discussed the future options and concluded that the work started, particularly the development of the network, should be continued.

The next Partner meeting of ACRUNET will take place in Dublin on March 3-4, 2015.