Crab and Lobster (C & L) Working Group
Minutes of Meeting – 30 September 2009 Hilton Hotel, Edinburgh Airport
Attendees
Alan Coghill (Chair)
Jamie Combe
Helen Dobby
Sarah Holmyard
Chris Leakey
Duncan MacInnes
Gregor McKenzie
Malcolm Morrison
Rob Roberts
David Shiel
Grahame Sinclair
Alex Watt
Libby Woodhatch
Apologies: Stewart Crichton, James Willox, Lachie Murray
INTRODUCTION
1.
Chairman Alan Coghill opened the meeting, thanked everyone for attending
and recorded apologies.
PREVIOUS MEETING’S MINUTES
2.
The minutes were passed as a correct record and Alan invited Rob Roberts
to run through the action points and other outstanding issues.
ACTION PLAN & GENERAL UPDATE
3.
Rob gave an update on shellfish waste disposal regulations. Sheila Voas
(Scottish Government Veterinary Division) advises that new EU regulations on
disposal of animal by-product waste from processing would take effect in January
2011. A derogation has been secured which means that clean shells will be exempt
from the animal by-products controls when they do take effect. The draft regulation
states that it shall not apply to “shells from shellfish with the soft tissue and flesh
removed”.
4.
Although welcoming this news Grahame Sinclair was concerned about how
useful the derogation would be if it required the shells to be entirely clean of tissue
as that is difficult for crab processors to achieve. He asked that Marine Scotland
continue to discuss this issue with the Veterinary Division and with SEPA and seek a
pragmatic approach to enforcing these regulations.
ACTION POINT – Marine Scotland to seek further information on the
application and enforcement of these regulations.
UPDATE ON CADMIUM
5.
Rob gave an update on the issue of cadmium levels in crab meat and the
potential public health concerns raised by Italian food authorities which have stopped
allowing the import of crab. Marine Scotland has been in correspondence on this
issue with the Food Standards Agency. The FSA has advised that is well known that
the brown meat of crabs contains higher levels of cadmium than the white meat.
However, although there is a regulatory limit for cadmium in the white meat, no such
limit exists for brown meat and this is the basis for Italian concern. In discussion, the
group raised two points of particular concern: (i) the possibility of a change in testing
procedure to include the brown meat in calculation of a safe level and (ii) the
potential loss of consumer confidence should the media run a negative story about
cadmium and crab meat.
UPDATE ON LATENT CAPACITY
6.
Jamie gave an update on latent capacity figures which had been requested at
the previous meeting. Figures supplied from Sea Fisheries Licensing staff had been
circulated to attendees and indicated that 797 Scottish vessels had made use of their
Shellfish entitlement to catch Crab & Lobster in the first 6 months of 2009. However,
that left a further 602 who had the entitlement but had not fished for Crab & Lobster.
On closer examination of the figures Duncan & Gregor suggested that the
dedicated crab and lobster fleet was probably about half the total number of vessels
that had fished for those species. Although the group agreed these figures were a
reasonable guide to the level of latent capacity, some suggested that the figures
should be reproduced later in the year to take account of the late summer/autumn
fishing which is the peak period for crab and lobster. Additionally, when the figures
are re-produced Jamie agreed to try and get some UK figures and to breakdown the
figures by tonnage.
8.
Duncan said he was a member of the Licence Review Working Group and
the issue of latent capacity in the crab & lobster sector had been raised there. He
said officials on the group were awaiting advice from lawyers on the legality of
withdrawing the entitlement from licences that had not been actively fishing for crabs
and lobsters in recent years. There was some discussion amongst the group and an
agreement that entitlement should be based on having a track record of catching
crab and lobster in the recent past. It should be done retrospectively and not
announced as happening from a date in the future as boats would take the
opportunity to “re-activate” their entitlement just to keep their options open. Gregor
pointed to the shift in effort to nephrops from whitefish in the North East as an
example of what could happen to the crab and lobster sector if latent capacity
remains and other management or marketing pressures begin to force nephrops and
whitefish boats to find new fishing opportunities.
ACTION POINT – Marine Scotland to re-produce figures taking account of the
rest of the year, the vessel tonnage and the UK position. Also to discuss
further with colleagues in LRWG.
UPDATE ON VOLUNTARY CODE OF CONDUCT
9.
Jess Sparks of Seafood Scotland had issued the Seafish Best Practice Guide
to a handful of members with a view to it forming the core of a new code of conduct.
Libby said the feedback received regarding the content had been positive.
However, the general feeling was the document was a bit too large and too heavy on
detail for the purposes of a code of conduct. It was agreed that the information
within the guide was accurate but Seafood Scotland were asked to summarise it and
make it more accessible and user friendly with guidance from the group on which
parts should be used in a code of conduct.
Action Point – Seafood Scotland to summarise the best practice guide into a
shorter format seeking advice from Crab & Lobster group on what the key
points should be.
BUDGET UPDATE
10.
Rob announced that the budget allocated for the work of the crab and lobster
group for this financial year had been confirmed as £30k.
SCIENCE UPDATE
11.
Helen went over Marine Scotland Science’s latest Crab & Lobster projects.
On data collection, Helen said that Susan Lusseau was leading on a new EU funded
project. A project meeting is being held in the next few months.
12.
The crab tagging project for the North Coast has secured funding for another
year and the next round of tagging will begin during October.
13.
Finally, Helen said that the update on stock status was now in production and
should be completed in late 2009 or early 2010. Chris added that SNH have a
project underway to try and co-ordinate and rationalise data collection with
colleagues in Marine Scotland Science with a view to mapping fishing activity and
effort an a Scotland wide basis. Grahame and Alan suggested that it was important
to try and increase science on crab stocks down the east and west coasts as well as
the north and islands.
LOBSTER MARKET SITUATION & MARKETING
14.
Grahame reported there had been a glut of lobster across the board this
summer with boats reported to be discarding up to 70% of what they were catching
with a lot of juveniles in that figure. This glut may be the result of increased water
temperature or a reduction in the number of predators. He added that most
businesses were likely to have plenty of lobsters in their storage tanks for the winter
market. Prices were down over the summer due to a weak European market with
some processors paying £6.50 - £7.00 per kilo to the boats. The situation is now
improving and the prices are increasing weekly but are unlikely to reach peak
Christmas prices of the past. Alan suggested that it would be useful if Seafood
Scotland could look at some marketing strategies for lobster and Sarah agreed to
look at that.
Action Point – Sarah to produce some marketing suggestions targeted at
lobster
TRANSNATIONAL UPDATE
15.
Crick Carlton of Nautilus Consultants joined the meeting to cover this agenda
item. Crick described how his company had been engaged to produce a Brown
Crab Study funded by SFF and Seafish and commissioned by the Transnational
Crab Group. Crick has been tasked to look at the Brown Crab industry across the
UK and Ireland and in order to get a feeling for the grass roots of the industry he has
held 6 regional meetings with the Scottish meeting held recently in Inverness. Crick
felt the key concerns of those who attended the Inverness meeting related to direct
management action with restrictions on effort and latent capacity chief amongst
them. Rob said there was no doubt that reducing latent capacity was recognised as
a top priority for this sector and Licence Review Working Group was the best
opportunity to push for a change.
ACCREDITATION
16.
Libby spoke about the work Seafood Scotland has done in supporting the
accreditation attempts of the Pelagic group and NS Nephrops & Haddock group. She
explained how important it was that a clear client group was defined and the
approach taken by the above was to formally set up a company that incorporated
and managed the entire client group with individual appointed within the company to
liaise with the assessors.
17.
Libby added that it was essential to have funding secured not only for the
initial assessment and accreditation but for the ongoing costs of the annual
surveillance audit and in year 5 a full re-assessment.
18.
Crick spoke about his experiences of accreditation and listed what he saw as
the areas of weakness the crab sector would have to tackle if they were to be
successful in gaining accreditation on a national basis. Particular issues he raised
were:
 no evidence of responsive fisheries management in brown crab sector, need to
be able to show that effort and catch be controlled and reduced as necessary;
 to trigger mechanism for signalling that stock is unhealthy;
 only partial scientific data is available, there is no consistent process to monitor
stock level;
 no consistent record of Catch Per Unit Effort;
 no Harvest Control rule;
 of 31 assessment measures Crick advised that he felt the crab sector would fail
at least 6 of them if they were assessed now.
19.
Alan felt Crick painted a somewhat pessimistic picture of the prospects for
gaining accreditation and though he felt it was clearly a challenging task he said
none of the obstacles raised were insurmountable. He reminded the group that in
order to maintain supply to certain retailers in the coming years accreditation was
going to be a necessity not just an option.
20.
There followed a discussion amongst the group regarding the issues that had
been raised with particular difficulties identified as the creation of a nationwide client
group and finding a way to fund it. Duncan suggested a levy system could be
introduced so vessels would pay via their buyers/processors with the cost being so
low when spread across all the boats that there probably wouldn’t be too much
opposition.
Crick suggested making use of the Scottish Industry Science
Partnership (SISP) to bring science issues up to MSC standard within a year or so.
21. Alan concluded the discussion on accreditation by suggesting that the Strategy
Group ought to be consulted to make sure we have their backing to take this work
forward. It was generally agreed that going forward for pre-assessment would be a
good way of pinning down the exact improvements that would need to be made if a
full assessment was to prove a success. Perhaps the £30k budget of the group
could be tapped into to fund pre-assessment.
CRAB MARKETING
22.
Sarah tabled a paper which summarised the promotional activity for Crab
products carried out by Seafood Scotland over the last 6 months. Seven different
events had been targeted the most significant of which is the Bocuse D’Or culinary
competition, the final of which will be held in January 2011. For the first time the
Bocuse D’Or will showcase Scottish Seafood including Crab in the final having
previously tended to use Norwegian seafood which was seen to have a significant
benefit to Norwegian exports. Marketing materials will be specifically developed for
the Bocuse D’Or along with a focussed publicity and press campaign.
23.
Sarah also brought along samples of promotional leaflets that have been
produced for Crabs. These were welcomed by the group and were thought to
represent excellent value with 40,000 leaflets produced for around £1600. There
were a couple of minor suggestions to correct the wording on the leaflet but other
than that they were ready to go to print. The leaflet can be tailored to become
specific for individual processors and they will be ready to be used at the BBC Good
Food Show. Grahame suggested some should be translated into French for the
Bocuse D’Or.
ACTION POINT – Sarah to make the corrections to wording on the leaflets and
go ahead with print production.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
24.
Duncan mentioned the recommendations for the Crab and Lobster sector
arising from the Profitable Futures Group. Some of their recommendations tie in with
the work of our Crab & Lobster group including the pursuit of accreditation and
delivery of a code of good practice.
Next Meeting
25.
Ideally, the next meeting should be held in mid to late January, avoiding the
last week of the month. A back to back meeting with the Strategy Group may be
looked at to cut down on travel for attendees.
Sea Fisheries Policy
Marine Scotland
October 2009