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"We need to make consumers fall in love with fish again"
The round table on "The challenge of increasing fish consumption" stressed the importance of communication and training to encourage young people and hotel and catering professionals to eat seafood.
Promoting fish consumption has become one of the main themes of this 6th Meeting of the Seas, with a round table dedicated to the subject. Under the title 'The challenge of increasing fish consumption' and chaired by Toni Massanés, director general of the Fundació Alícia, four people took part: Chema León, marketing director at Makro; Ignacio Solana, chef at the Solana* restaurant in Ampuero (Cantabria); José Álvarez, chef at the La Costa* restaurant in El Ejido (Almería); and Antonio Nieto, director of Pesca España.
All agreed on the importance of increasing fish consumption and reversing the downward trend of recent years, with León being the most emphatic: "It's dramatic because we cannot imagine our gastronomy without it. It is part of our cuisine". The problem is how to reverse this situation, and communication has emerged as the best way to do this: "Everyone likes fish, but it is not consumed", explained Nieto, who focused on "winning the story against this environmentalist obsession that makes people turn away from fish, when the effort made by the fishing sector in this area is brutal". For this reason, "we must make consumers fall in love with fish again". For the director of Pesca España, the solution lies in "promotion and communication. We need to be where young people are, on social networks, and we need to emphasise our messages in an age where simplicity is valued. We have to communicate effectively".
Once again, the figures speak for themselves and show that young people are not attracted to buying fish. It is in this demographic that the most work needs to be done, and Ignacio Solana defended that "we must do more".