Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)

En - European seabass,   Fr - Bar européen,  Es - Lubina

Seabass were historically cultured in coastal lagoons and tidal reservoirs before the race to develop the mass-production of juveniles started in the late 1960s. Fish culture was initially associated with salt production in coastal evaporation pans and marshes. The salt was harvested during the high evaporation season of summer and autumn, and fish were cultured during winter and spring. The supply for this culture came from trapping schools of fish that lived in these estuarine areas.

During the late 1960s, France and Italy competed to develop reliable mass-production techniques for juvenile seabass and, by the late 1970s, these techniques were well enough developed in most Mediterranean countries to provide hundreds of thousands of larvae. The European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) was the first marine non-salmonid species to be commercially cultured in Europe and at present is the most important commercial fish widely cultured in Mediterranean areas. Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Croatia and Egypt are the biggest producers.

Market & Trade

One of the largest success stories in European aquaculture has been the Mediterranean seabass industry, which in less than 15 years grew from a few thousand tonnes to 57 000 tonnes today, having peaked at nearly 71 000 tonnes in 2000. When farmed bass started getting to market in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the farmed quality was seen to complement the wild species and prices were very high. Prices of the wild product may have suffered initially, as the volumes from aquaculture continued growing, but today there is clear distinction in the market between wild and farmed product, with the prices for wild bass several times higher than those of the farmed fish.

Compared to many other species of farmed fish, such as salmon or trout, seabass has so far been mainly marketed whole and fresh, with only limited volumes undergoing any form of processing or value-addition. In any case, product development in the bass sector has been very limited. One major reason is the conservatism of Mediterranean consumers, who are used to seeing the fish whole when sold retail, despite the fact that the fish certainly would have been better if they had been gutted at source.

Some product development is now under way, both among the larger Greek producers and by specialised Italian fish processors who import Greek product and then repack it in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), giving the product a longer shelf-life. However, more product development is certainly necessary if additional quantities of bass are to be absorbed in the current markets. Likewise, product penetration in Northern Europe is still very limited: it is based on ethnic restaurants (Greek, Turkish, and Spanish) but spurred by the growing popularity of the Mediterranean cuisine and diet.

Status & Trends

In Europe, the seabass industry has grown strongly in the last decade. Production is mostly exported, mainly to Italy and Spain. The main exporter was Greece, with about 70 percent of domestic production exported. Italy was originally almost the only export market for Greek production but, as a result of market development efforts, its exports have now expanded into new markets, such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as Spain for certain sizes. At the opposite end of the scale, the trade in fingerlings comes from Italy, Spain and France and goes to farms in Greece, Malta and Croatia. As the output of seabass has grown costs were driven down, and market prices declined by more than two-thirds between 1990 and 2002 (from US$ 16/kg to about US$ 4-5/kg. The rapid saturation of the market and the parallel rapid price decline (60-70 percent in ten years) are attributed to the much smaller traditional market for these species (mainly in southern Europe) compared with the Atlantic salmon market, the lack of diversified products, and limited market development and promotion. The substantial drop in prices of these species is, however, opening new markets and expanding existing ones, although acceptable profit margins at the production can only be sustained through further improvements in productivity and product diversification. Over-production in some countries has been a contributing factor in the decline in prices (supply exceeding demand), which has in turn probably been responsible for the general fall in total production of this species between 2000 and 2002.

Information Source

http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Dicentrarchus_labrax