Strategic Use of Competitiveness towards Consolidating the Economic Sustainability of the european Seafood sector

ended

SUCCESS is bringing together an integrated team of scientists from all fields of fisheries and aquaculture science with industry partners and key stakeholders to work on solutions which shall improve the competitiveness of the European fisheries and aquaculture sector. The supply-side of seafood markets is limited from both sea fisheries and aquaculture. At the same time demand for seafood products is increasing. In a globalised economy, the conjunction of these two trends should generate high opportunities for any seafood production activity. However, both fisheries and aquaculture companies are facing key challenges, which currently hinder them reaping the full benefits of seafood markets expansion, and even question their sustainability. As a whole, the EU fisheries sector remains at low levels of profitability and sustainability. The SUCCESS project will examine two strategies to improve the competitiveness of the sector: (i) increasing demand for EU seafood products, especially improving the awareness of the advantages of European production (including sustainability requirements and adjustment to market evolution); and (ii) cost reduction in certain production segments. For both strategies development on world markets as well as consumer preferences and awareness will be analysed. Additionally, SUCCESS will explore the different sectors along the value chain (from fisheries and aquaculture producers via processing companies, wholesalers, retailers to direct marketing to mobile fishmongers and restaurants) and their potential for improvements in competitiveness. These analyses also include long term predictions about the viability of certain production systems and will be considered in specific case studies on for example mussel production, shrimp fisheries, whitefish, traditional pond aquaculture and new aquaculture production systems.