The English are the largest consumers of shrimp in Europe and to soccer stadiums are great places for tasting the small crustacean.
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June 5, 2020 19h37
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The shrimp, and the stages
Gilles Gagné
The Sun
CARLETON — The pandemic of COVID-19 profoundly affects the fishing in the northern shrimp this year in Quebec. The inventories of unsold products processed by 2019, are still significant and one of the factors explaining the weakness of the sales, it is the absence of soccer matches in large stadiums in the United Kingdom!
The English are the largest consumers of shrimp in Europe and to soccer stadiums are great places for tasting the small crustacean, emphasizes Patrice Element, the director of the Office of the fishermen of a shrimp of the town of Gaspé.
“It is almost as popular as hot dogs in stadiums in North America. The tennis fans to Wimbledon to eat strawberries and cream, and the soccer fans in the stadiums, eat sandwiches to shrimp, but these stages have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic,” says Mr Element.
Two-thirds of the northern shrimp processed in factories in québec are exported. The european market takes a lot of space for this product, infinitely more so than for other crustaceans such as snow crab and lobster.
Apart from three fishing boats have often the ability to turn the shrimp on board, the quarantine of shrimp in quebec are moored at the quay since the beginning of the season, which usually begins on the 1st of April.
The fishermen, who have obtained 1.42 per pound on average in 2019, have made an offer of 1.02 per pound to processors, who have made a counter-offer to 0.67 $. The Governance of agricultural markets has sliced a few days ago in favor of the fishermen, but the factories have decided not to initiate purchases, which would give the green light to the capture and processing. A second trading period will start after June 30.
“This is the déconfinement in Europe, which will restore the price of shrimp, in England and in the scandinavian countries […] The canadian shrimp is sold in the United Kingdom and Denmark. The Danes consume a lot, and they sell also a lot elsewhere”, adds Patrice Element.
He noted that the key would clear the inventories of unsold plants in quebec, primarily located in the Gaspé peninsula, is a… in Quebec.
“He eats more species of exotic fish such as tilapia that of northern shrimp caught in Quebec! There is a great lack of knowledge of the québec products, such as shrimp. ”
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Patrice Element, the director of the Office of the fishermen of a shrimp of the town of Gaspé
“People say that it is a question of price. There is another issue. Without chauvinism, we can say that our shrimp is the best, compared to shrimp farming in Asia, for example. Without insulting anyone, it must be said that the average urban dweller does not know what to do with. When you do heat it, it shrinks. With butter and garlic, it kills the taste”, emphasizes Patrice Element.
“There is a lack of campaigns to promote products quebec sailors. On a box of macaroni, there is a recipe in the back. It takes a form of popular education, so that people know what to do with shrimp,” he concludes.
Sandra Gauthier, spokesperson of the blue Fork, an organization dedicated to the enhancement of marine products from quebec, abounds in the same direction; the solution of the current crisis in the shrimp and hundreds of jobs, close to 800, which are dependent on it, is located in Quebec.
“According to data from 2017, the Québec exports 10 000 tonnes of shrimp per year, from catches of 16 000 tons. The Quebec import 50 000 tons of shrimp from Argentina and Asia! I have done the calculation. If we are replacing a purchase on four of shrimp imported by the northern shrimp, we rule the problem of inventories of the plants. The fishermen and the factory workers could then go back to work,” says Ms. Gauthier.
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About the price, Sandra Gauthier recalls that “it is like comparing chopped steak and filet mignon. It was a top of the range and affordable, our northern shrimp, and farmed shrimp is imported, packed full of antibiotics and hormones”, slice-t-it.
At the time of the blue Basket, created since the beginning of the pandemic in order to increase the purchase of products from quebec, Ms. Gauthier laments the emptiness, for years, in terms of sustained promotion of fish, molluscs and crustaceans here.
“There is no campaign for the promotion of marine products. It is the mandate of the AQIP (quebec Association of the fishing industry). It is up to them to do so, but there’s no site that makes the promotion of marine products in Quebec. It is easier to sell to one or two wholesalers abroad than sell at 150 fish stores in Quebec. The dollar is another factor, she notes, about the weakness of the canadian dollar compared to the u.s. dollar, a factor encouraging exports.
“It takes a blow of bar, and it is the opportunity to do so, this pandemic. People do not find it, the shrimp. It takes a “couple of chefs”, a recipe, and it has a solution. The closure of foreign markets hurts, but it has plants with freezers full, whose leaders have never talked about it to sell at markets in quebec. Blue fork is ready to do it, this promotional campaign if the industry is not interested,” says Sandra Gauthier.
