The PrimeFish project receives the knowledge and experience of the industry though the Industry Reference Group (IRG). One of its members is Luz Arregui, General Manager of the National Association of Inland Aquaculture (ESACUA) and manager of the Grupo Tres Mares aquaculture company. 

In the first PrimeFish meeting, Arregui highlighted the rise on the exploitation costs, for instance, on feed and oxygen over last years. The decrease of cash-flow, due to the global financial crisis, holds back trout producers capacity to negotiate competitive prices with suppliers. In the current socio-economic realm, Arregui considers that “production figures are going to remain stable, as companies decide to maintain the supply according to the market requests in order to achieve price stability”.

International trade is one of the core activities for the Spanish trout producers, since they have been flexible enough to meet the different patterns of consumption. For example, Grupo Tres Mares ships frozen trout to the British market or a special package for barbeque to German groceries in summer. However, producers and, therefore, markets receive the influence of a wide array of circumstances, as producers using aggressive commercial strategies to compete in the European market, or the Russian embargo, which forced them to find new markets in a short period of time.

Salmonid trout fillet with lavanda

Photo credit: Grupo Tres Mares