"Respond To Consumers": Farmed Trout Industry Urged

A new report, "Future Strategies for the English Farmed Trout Industry", published today by the Ministry of Agriculture, is encouraging the trout farming industry to respond to the demands of the consumer and improve its competitiveness.

The report follows a seminar hosted by MAFF on 7 March 2000. This event involving all sectors of the trout farming industry and looked at the challenges facing the industry.

The report concludes that there are several key areas that need to be addressed if the industry is to make significant progress in the future. These are:

• a need to improve dialogue and collaboration throughout the production and supply chain, increasing efficiency and lowering production costs;
• the potential benefits of greater collaboration to overcome industry fragmentation;
• the desirability of working towards a single industry wide Quality Assurance scheme;
• the importance of responding to the needs of consumers and the market place, and of new product development;
• the need to invest in effective generic promotion.

Welcoming the report, Fisheries Minister Elliot Morley said:

"This report makes a number of recommendations that I'm sure industry will be keen to consider and take forward. The farmed trout industry has an important contribution to make to the rural economy, and if it is to continue to do so it must ensure that it can meet the demands of the consumer and the new market place. We should therefore look to review progress next Spring."