Regional segmentation of the salted codfish market in Spain: Implications for Norwegian producers

Abstract

Sánchez-Hernández, J.L. & Espinosa-Seguí, A. 2015. Regional segmentation of the salted codfish market in Spain: Implications for Norwegian producers. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 69, 00–00. ISSN 0029-1951.

The article draws on the theory of conventions to analyse the shift in the geographical origin of salted codfish consumed in Spain. Since the mid-1990s, Norway has lost most of its market share to new suppliers such as Iceland. The authors analyse a dataset comprising statistical data and information from semi-structured interviews conducted with Spanish processing companies, retail outlets, foodservice managers, and private consumers. They find that this substitution process is a consequence of the ability of new suppliers to meet the more complex demands of the increasingly segmented Spanish market. Further, regional consumption patterns in Spain are diverging from the comparatively homogeneous situation that underpinned the traditional Norwegian hegemony. Industrial, market, and public conventions have become more influential in the most populated regions, such as Madrid, Catalonia, and the Basque Country. The authors argue that a stronger focus on the upper segment of the Spanish codfish market, based on domestic, ecological, and civic conventions, might constitute a reliable strategy for Norwegian producers to recapture some of their market share. It is concluded that concerned consumers in Spain are still sensitive to attributes related to origin, sustainability, and local development, all of which underpin the Norwegian salted codfish production system.

Keywords:

• consumption patterns
• Norwegian codfish producers
• regional conventions
• salted codfish
• Spanish markets

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support of research grant 185126/I10 for the ‘The Norwegian-Spanish Salted Fish Project’ (2008–2011), funded by the Research Council of Norway. Support for writing this article was received from The Spanish National Research and Development Framework 2008–2011 (Grant number CSO2011-29168-C03-03 for the project ‘Worlds of production and location patterns of food industry in Spain’).

Notes

1 In terms of proteins, the price of salted codfish was not so different from the price of frozen and fresh codfish. Assuming a recovery rate of edible fish from salted fish of 70% (Lindkvist et al. 2008), salted fish would have really cost EUR 8.16 (EUR 11.66 × 0.70), which would have been much closer to the average prices for fresh and frozen codfish, but still more expensive. Although the data do not separate whole fish from fillets in the categories under discussion, fieldwork in retail outlets clearly demonstrated that the prices of any type of fillets are slightly higher than for whole fish, and reflect the cost of the filleting process. Bones, heads, and other parts of the whole fish may be separately used for making fish soups, which makes whole fish potentially even cheaper in terms of proteins when compared to fillets. Despite these facts, consumers’ perceptions of price tend to be much less sophisticated, particularly in the context of an economic crisis that has turned price into the main force in the choice of food purchased.