Market Opportunities

The market cluster aims to analyze current strategies adopted by small-scale fishers in order to market their fish, to understand their challenges and shortcomings, and to explore the possibilities for improving the current situation. Specifically, the objectives of the cluster are to:

-Analyze the marketing channels and strategies for SSF products and their outcomes, including labeling schemes, alternative food networks and direct fish trade;

-Examine the role of women and SSF organizations in fish marketing and ways to enhance their involvement and success;

-Indicate how technological innovations may help to improve market shares and benefits to SSF people;

-Devise strategies to better differentiate SSF products from the catches coming from world markets, large-scale fisheries or aquaculture; and

-Make appropriate policy recommendations based on these findings.

Knowledge about SSF markets is scarce, due partly to the huge diversity of marketing strategies, with local market conditions forcing specific behavior patterns. In order to achieve the objectives set by the cluster, we need to collect basic information about SSF market systems and successful strategies, guided by the following questions:

Marketing channels for SSF catches

1. Who sells the catches? (e.g., fishers, women, fishers’ wives, fishers’ organization or cooperative, other)

2. a) Who buys the product (approx. %)? (e.g., local people through direct sell, middlemen, supermarkets, fish shop, industries)

2. b) What are the exact steps of the chain? i.e. what happens to a fish/shellfish product from “sea to plate”? (g., middle man buy 50% – sell half to fish shops and half to supermarkets)

3. Who are the consumers and where are they? (e.g., mainly local people, in the next city, somewhere in the country, regional market, international trade)? Why it is sold in this way (if any)? (e.g., due to convenience, because this market offers the better price)

4. Prices paid to fishers for main species and how/why does it fluctuate (if at all)?

Marketing strategies for SSF catches and outcomes

5. SSF catches are well differentiated in the market from large-scale or world-market fisheries?

6. Are there any initiatives for paying good/fair prices to fishers for SSF catches?

• Differentiation strategies (e.g. label of origin), sustainability (e.g. MSC, others), commercial agreements (e.g. with major retailers), innovation in markets, technological innovations (e.g. online sell of catches), etc.

7. How different is the price paid to fishers from the price paid by consumers for the main species (if the information is available)?

First sale price? (in auction); Average final price? (e.g., less than 10% of final price; 10-20% of final price, 20-50% of final price; more than 50% of final price)

8. What are the most important problems in marketing of SSF products?

• Low demand? Low prices? Lack of marketing infrastructure? Other?

Fishers’ organizations and marketing, with a focus on success cases

9. How women and/or fisher organizations have been involved in the marketing strategies?

10. What has the previous collective action experience of fisher organizations been in other areas? What alliances, if any, were developed with other actors in the value chain?

11. What problems surged, and how were they managed to facilitate success?

12. Can the successful marketing experience be scaled-up? If yes, how?

The final outcome for this cluster would be a better understanding of the marketing systems and strategies for SSF. One of the deliverables will be a database of case studies about market opportunities based on the research questions mentioned above. We aim to synthesize lessons from the empirical evidence collected and use that as a basis for the development of innovation strategies for SSF marketing. We also plan to publish a special volume in a journal about market opportunities for SSF, with detailed/developed case studies contribution.

We call on all individuals or institutions, including universities, research institutes and community-based organizations from different geographical locations interested in contributing to this exciting thematic cluster by actively participating in the generation of these outcomes. Case study contributions should be based on ongoing or recently concluded work.

If you would like to get involved in the cluster and learn more about it, please contact us at toobigtoignore@mun.ca.

TBTI webinar series on SSF Markets: Small-scale fisheries in Europe: Roles of markets, communities and organizations

1. Rapid assessment of market 

The market cluster aims to analyze current strategies adopted by small-scale fishers in order to market their fish, to understand their challenges and shortcomings, and to explore the possibilities for improving the current situation.

This rapid assessment survey is an important starting point towards reaching these objectives. As such, we are inviting small-scale fishers, practitioners and researchers to complete a survey. The analysis will be global and comparative and will be weighted to reflect the level of knowledge and familiarity of the respondents.

To find out more about the assessment and to contribute your data, download the Market opportunities_Rapid Assesment template. The completed template should be sent to toobigtoignore@mun.ca as an attachment.

2. SSF profiles 

One of the main commitments of TBTI is to make information about SSF comprehensive and available to everyone. The SSF profile in ISSF is developed with this in mind. Currently, ISSF is running the  SSF profiles drive to complete the first 200 profiles. We would like to encourage all cluster members to help with this task by completing the fillable form and email it to toobigtoignore@mun.ca. We don’t expect that you will have all the required information so please consult colleagues or literature as necessary.

Jose Pascual, University of La Laguna , Spain

Cristina Pita, University of Aberdeen, UK

Helga Josupeit, Independent consultant

Joonas Plaan, Memorial University, Canada