New Delhi, Dec 01, 2022, By Special Correspondent
New Delhi, Dec 1: The importance of enhancing domestic fish consumption to ensure nutritional support to marginalised communities and enhance proliferation of fish businesses domestically was highlighted at an event here on Thursday.
At a national webinar on promotion of frozen fish and fish products, organised by the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India, speakers particularly highlighted that enhancing domestic fish consumption should be India’s risk mitigation plan for assured sectoral growth in case of uncertainties in the global fish markets.
In his keynote address, Secretary, DoF Jatindra Nath Swain highlighted making frozen fish and fish products accessible to broaden the consumer base and importantly to work on building trust amongst consumers for selling frozen fish and fish products.
In order to build on consumer trust, he advised that as current exporters follow stringent quality requirements hence the same quality frozen fish and fish products should be extended to the domestic market with the necessary labeling and certifications, he said.
Additionally, he emphasised exploring the utilisation of the existing supply chain of other products for increasing accessibility to consumers in urban, semi-urban, and interior areas.
Industry experts G S Rath (Sr. General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Falcon Marine Exports Limited), A J Tharakan (Chairman, Amalgam Group of Companies), and Mathew Joseph (COO & Co-Founder, Fresh to Home) participated in the technical session on market trends, consumer insights, and technologies used for processing of frozen fish and fish products.
While discussing the current market scenario and technologies involved, the panelists also highlighted on-ground challenges pertaining to low consumers’ preference for frozen fish as compared to fresh fish, fragmented supply chain, low positioning of frozen fish and fish products in the consumer market, and low product availability.
The speakers underlined the opportunity areas and recommended strategies to move forward. This included developing market campaigns for frozen fish and fish products through generating consumer awareness and behavioral change communication campaigns, setting up processing plants for reducing transactional costs, harnessing the Ready-To-Eat (RTE) and Ready-To-Cook (RTC) consumer base, developing policies around organising fish markets that can bring in price transparency, streamlined processes for quality and ease of doing business.
Videos shown by the experts on industrial practices and questions were taken up during the open forum to make the session interactive and fruitful. Follow-up action points also came out from the insightful discussions to further develop sectoral strategies and action plans.
The webinar was well-attended by entrepreneurs, fisheries associations, officials of the Department of Fisheries, GoI, and fisheries officials of different States/UTs, faculties from state agriculture, veterinary and fisheries universities, fisheries research institutes, fisheries cooperative officers, scientists, students and stakeholders from fisheries across the country.
In his welcome address, Joint Secretary (Inland Fisheries) Sagar Mehra briefly discussed the current status of the Indian fisheries sector, the flagship scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY).
