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China Fisheries & Seafood Expo, Nov 1-4, Qingdao, China

Philip Chou with seafood expo organizers, Peter Redmayne and Jennie Fu, and Han Han of SFP. Credit: Philip Chou.

The China Fisheries & Seafood Expo is the largest seafood trade show in Asia with more than 2,000 booths spanning four exhibitor halls. Philip Chou, Kristian Teleki, and Elisabeth Vallet represented SeaWeb’s Seafood Choices initiative at the show, and promoted the 10^th International Seafood Summit. SeaWeb also secured the services of Sea Fare Group, who are the show organizers, to set up appointments with Chinese officials within the Ministry of Agriculture and to organize a half-day sustainable seafood forum.

Seafood Choices had a booth this year to promote the Seafood Summit and have a place to hold meetings with stakeholders. In addition to the booth design, banners, and Summit Outreach materials, we also had our powerful Seafood Summit video produced from the Vancouver Summit edited to include Chinese subtitles playing in the background.

SeaWeb’s booth at the show. Credit: Philip Chou

SeaWeb sponsored the 3^rd Sustainable Seafood Forum, which was held on day one of the seafood show. The forum was designed to lay some basic groundwork on the sustainable seafood movement as well as update Chinese industry on latest developments impacting their business. SeaWeb had a host of speakers including retailers from Japan, France, and the UK talking about their sustainability efforts in China, a certifier discussing new standards, and the FAO elaborating on global seafood sustainability and the market for organic seafood. Philip, along with the Expo organizer, Peter Redmayne, kicked of the forum with a presentations on the sustainable seafood landscape.

Philip also met with two Ministry of Agriculture agencies, the China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the China Aquatic Products and Processing Marketing Association to discuss how SeaWeb and these agencies might work together at the Seafood Summit, including: use of their China-wide seafood industry networks to promote the Summit; suggestions for speakers and session topics; and potential for official endorsement of the Seafood Summit by their respective agencies. These discussions are moving forward even now as SeaWeb, through its connections with the seafood expo organizer, Sea Fare Expositions, is figuring out next steps for necessary protocol and other details to bring the Chinese government on board.

Seafood display at the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo. Credit: Philip Chou

During this trip to China, the Seafood Choices team met with dozens of other stakeholders to discuss participation in, suggestions for, support of, and collaboration on the Seafood Summit. Some of these stakeholders included: Guolian Aquatic Products (China’s largest shrimp producer), Maoming Chanxing Foods (major Chinese tilapia producer for Wal-Mart), WWF China and the Smart Fishing Initiative, WWF Coral Triangle Initiative, Intrafish, US Dept of Commerce NOAA Tokyo office, Luen Thai Fishing Ventures, Thai Frozen Foods Association and Royal Thai Consulate-General, Thai Union Frozen Products, AIS Aqua Foods, Mt. Cook Alpine Salmon (New Zealand), and Embassy of the USA Agric. Affairs, among others.

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