Qinghai is famous among tourists for its magnificent scenery.
What few people know is that the domestic salmon (also known as "domestic rainbow trout") industry is booming here.
A reporter from the Beijing News visited the domestic salmon farming base in Qinghai and learned that due to the epidemic, domestic salmon sales did not pick up until August, and some companies' domestic sales were less than 30% in previous years. New methods such as e-commerce and processed products had little effect.
While helping the poor help open up the market, how to position domestic salmon in the market in the future has become the next topic of thought in the industry.
Sales are in trouble
In Tibetan, "dragon" is a valley, and "yang" is a steep cliff. The Longyangxia Reservoir in Qinghai City is more than 2,600 meters above sea level, with an average water depth of 64 meters and an average annual water temperature of 12°C. The unique and superior environment makes this place. A paradise for domestic salmon farming.
Zheng Weizhong, a domestic doctor who is engaged in marine biology and aquatic products research, told the Beijing News that in China, salmon is the collective name for Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.
Based on the different harsh water source conditions required for the growth of salmon and trout, most of the salmon circulating on the market in my country comes from imported salmon, while domestic salmon is mainly rainbow trout.
Ying Miyan, chairman of Qinghai Minze Longyangxia Ecological Aquaculture Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Minze Company"), introduced to a reporter from the Beijing News that the company’s breeding area is 253 acres of the 570,000 mu of reservoir in Qinghai Longyangxia. , The scale of environmental protection approval is 20,000 tons, and the actual scale of commodities and breeding is about 15,000 tons, accounting for about 50% of the total domestic salmon in my country.
In the reservoir breeding base, a reporter from the Beijing News saw that a piece of domestic salmon was sucked through a pipeline to reach the water workshop. After cutting its cheeks and bleeding, it was poured into a half-person-height yellow box by a conveyor belt, continuously covered by ice and cold water. In less than 2 minutes, a box of about 300 kilograms of domestic salmon was sealed.
After being refined in the factory, these domestic salmon will be delivered to customers within 48 hours.
In the context of the epidemic, strict control of food safety is the top priority of many fresh food enterprises.
In Minze Company, its own laboratory conducts nucleic acid tests on each batch of domestic salmon.
The reporter noticed that intelligent equipment monitors the growth of salmon in real time. A small screen of more than 10 inches can switch the dynamics of 20 cages.
Yang Xu, deputy general manager of Minze Company, said, "This year the salmon has grown well, and the output is expected to increase by another 20%."
However, in contrast to the increase in output, there is a sharp decline in domestic sales.
Minze is the only domestic salmon company that has been approved for export. It has export qualifications from Russia, the European Union, and Japan. From June to August this year, exports accounted for more than 70%.
Compared with the relatively stable export business, domestic sales recovered to less than 30% in the same period of previous years.
Yang Xu introduced that the resistance of the terminal consumer market during the epidemic caused a cliff-like decline in salmon sales. At its worst, a large number of orders were cancelled and sales went directly to zero.
The impact of the epidemic on the terminal catering and wholesale markets only gradually eased in August this year. Sales showed a pick-up trend, but the growth was slow, and the market remained cautious and wait-and-see.
At the same time, there are varying degrees of slow sales in farms across the country, and everyone is eager to ship goods, which to a certain extent has triggered low-price competition in the market.
Small and micro enterprises are encountering difficulties.
Mr. Zhao, who has more than 10 acres of domestic salmon farm in Zibo, Shandong, told the Beijing News that the annual output of his farm is about 300,000 to 400,000 jin, and the main sales channels are wholesale markets and hotels.
However, since the epidemic broke out at the beginning of this year, there has been no wholesaler order before August this year.
"It’s all on top of it. Although a truckload of goods was sold last month, the price was 30% lower than the same period in previous years." For the follow-up sales forecast, Mr. Zhao said, "If the situation improves in the next four months, the performance this year It’s the best result to be flat.” For some smaller, small-scale family farmers, it is more difficult to sell. It can only be said to be a selling point.
Want to solve through poverty alleviation
How to restore the previous sales of domestic salmon has become one of the most difficult problems at the moment.
In Yang Xu's view, there are three bottlenecks in the development of the domestic salmon industry. The first is the uneven quality of the breeding enterprises, and the standardization of production and product needs to be improved; the second is the lack of awareness of the domestic salmon on the consumer market; and the last is the average breeding area. For remote areas, it is difficult to train and stabilize professionals.
In fact, the recovery of the domestic salmon industry is of great significance to local development.
Ma Rui, Deputy Secretary-General of the Qinghai Provincial Government, pointed out that the salmon industry has become a characteristic industry in Qinghai in recent years and has driven the people to increase their income and get rid of poverty.
According to the official website of the People's Government of Gonghe County in Qinghai City, the salmon industry in Qinghai Province has become the country's largest salmon and trout cage farming base and one of the ten key agricultural industries in Qinghai Province.
Minze Chairman Ying Miyan introduced to the Beijing News reporter that when he came to Qinghai more than ten years ago, the local area was dominated by animal husbandry and depended on the sky for food.
Through the development of the domestic salmon industry, more than 95% of Minze’s 285 employees are villagers in Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and surrounding areas in Qinghai Province. Many of them have completed the transformation from farmers to modern residents to small bosses.
With the construction of the new industrial park, it is estimated that 400 jobs will be provided.
Since 2009, the Minze Longyang Gorge has continued to multiply and release into the Longyang Gorge reservoir area, with a total of 2.16 billion fry (tails) of naturally multiplied species, which can increase the income of fishermen along the Longyang Gorge by approximately 25 million yuan each year.
In order to further assist the sales of aquatic products in poverty-stricken areas and achieve poverty alleviation in the fishery industry, in September this year, under the guidance of the Fisheries and Fisheries Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Aquatic Products Circulation and Processing Association organized domestic chain retail enterprises, large supermarkets, catering companies, and health Fresh product supply chain companies, international purchasing companies, e-commerce companies, etc., held Qinghai salmon production and sales docking activities at Minze Company.
Minze said that after this event, by the end of September, it had reached preliminary cooperation intentions with more than 5 companies.
Market positioning becomes the key
After the production and marketing matchmaking meeting, Guangzhou Haiqing Food Co., Ltd. ("Haiqing Food"), a subsidiary of Guangzhou Huangsha Aquatic Products Trading Market, got further contact with Minze Company.
On September 27, Tan Huiying, deputy general manager of Haiqing Foods, told the Beijing News reporter that in Guangzhou and other places, imported salmon has been circulating in the wholesale market for a long time, but trout has not completely entered.
If domestic salmon wants to enter the South China market, the collective name "salmon" does not necessarily have an advantage. Perhaps the sub-category name "rainbow trout" may be directly used to establish a new brand image.
A reporter from the Beijing News searched for the keyword "salmon" on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com and found that the top 10 products sold were all imported salmon.
Among them, on the Tmall page, with 80 entries per page as a unit, the domestic salmon did not appear until the third page.
But by searching for the keyword "rainbow trout", you can directly find domestic salmon products.
Tan Huiying said that rainbow trout may have a better taste than salmon in terms of cooked food and should be accepted by consumers in the South China market. It has great potential in the domestic sales market, but subsequent cooperation needs to be judged based on the final market positioning, price and output.
According to Yang Xu, deputy general manager of Minze, if only the more professional category name "rainbow trout" is highlighted, it is a choice with pros and cons.
The advantage is that it is more professional and can be distinguished from similar products; the disadvantage is that if you abandon the collective name of salmon, it is equivalent to rebuilding a brand in the terminal consumer market, and it is likely to encounter difficulties such as bad market competition.
Regarding the adjustment of the name, Zheng Weizhong told the Beijing News that the industry has also suggested that the terminal market should indicate salmon, trout and other sub-species when selling salmon.
But as far as consumers are concerned, everyone's perception of the collective term "salmon" has been deeply ingrained. If a new brand is brought up, it will take time for consumers to slowly transform their acceptance of the new name.
Some consumers do not know that salmon is classified
In fact, as early as 2018, the "Raw Salmon" group standard formulated by the China Aquatic Products Circulation and Processing Association in conjunction with a number of companies pointed out that salmon is a collective term for salmonids, including Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, coho salmon, and king salmon. , Sockeye salmon, autumn salmon, pink salmon, etc.
It is clearly required that the product labels indicate the origin and species name of the raw fish, so that consumers know where the raw fish comes from, and the product name and species name.
On October 13, a reporter from the Beijing News visited 5 fresh food supermarkets in Dongcheng District and Daxing District of Beijing as a consumer. One of the supermarkets in Dongcheng District stated that since the new outbreak in the middle of the year, the supermarket where it is located has not yet Salmon products are on the shelves.
Most of the salmon sold by the remaining 4 supermarkets are imported, but the price tags made by the supermarkets do not indicate the specific category, and the labels with the origin only indicate the domestic processing location.
In terms of product packaging, among the 4 supermarkets, one supermarket did not print the specific category and origin of salmon on the packaging sticker.
Combining the on-site visits by reporters of the Beijing News and the pictures provided by consumers, salmon products packaged by food companies will basically indicate "salmon (Atlantic salmon)" and "salmon (rainbow trout)" in the ingredient list.
Do consumers understand the classification of salmon?
A reporter from the Beijing News randomly interviewed more than 10 consumers. Among them, most of them said that they did not know that salmon had a classification, and paid more attention to the formality of purchasing channels than types.
Consumer Ms. Wu said that although she knows that salmon is divided into imported salmon and domestic trout, it is more concerned about the freshness when buying it. It doesn't make much sense to separate it.
Consumer Ms. Xiao believes that if salmon and trout prices are different, a clear classification of salmon is more conducive to everyone's choice and judgment.
Large-scale farming still needs to be explored
The development of domestic salmon on the catering side is also a concern.
Regarding whether the Japanese food industry will consider replacing imported salmon with domestic salmon, Mr. Gao, the purchasing manager of a domestic chain Japanese food store, told the Beijing News reporter that compared with imported products, the transportation distance of domestic chilled fresh food is shorter. Both have more advantages in terms of price and price. Both have their own characteristics. The salmon is smoother and the trout is firmer. There are still differences in the taste, plus the flavor that consumers are accustomed to, and cannot be completely replaced.
Whether domestic salmon can be promoted as a new dish requires experimentation and discussion.
"We have contacted the other party to send some products to study. However, which cooking method is suitable for domestic salmon, whether it can be pushed to the Japanese table, etc., still have to wait for the internal test to decide."
Is it possible for processed products to open a market for domestic salmon?
A reporter from the Beijing News noticed that when sales were blocked, some domestic salmon companies had begun to try to enter the C-end market through deep-processed products such as fish floss and smoked.
According to Minze’s feedback, although household consumption has increased due to the epidemic, retail and e-commerce have become new sales directions, but the products require full cold chain transportation and the proportion of raw fish is high. Retail and e-commerce supplement sales The effect is not obvious.
A reporter from the Beijing News noted that as of October 12, on the Tmall platform, the most popular product in the Longyangxia flagship store was still the vacuum lock fresh frozen set, followed by salmon floss and smoked salmon, with total sales in the order of 592 orders, 406 orders and 149 orders.
Zheng Weizhong said that in the future, the development of domestic salmon "the key is to target the market." For salmon and trout, the main domestic consumption is sushi and other raw food, so the development of processed products needs time to accept.
In the field of deep processing, domestic salmon is mostly supplied to hotels or western food markets in the form of cold smoked.
Compared with Western food and Japanese food, if the processed cooked food of domestic salmon can be better integrated into Chinese food, the future sales may also see a blowout growth.
He said that based on the harsh water conditions required for the growth of domestic salmon, the total annual output of domestic salmon is only more than 30,000 tons, which is not huge compared with other fish.
However, the country has begun to tap the production potential, experimenting with salmon and trout farming in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea and other distant deep-sea cold water masses. It will take some time to explore before large-scale farming.
If the study goes well, in about 3 to 5 years, domestic salmon and trout production may usher in a rapid growth, and domestic rainbow trout production capacity may double.
Reporter: Wang Siyang