Démarche qualité et différenciation des produits en aquaculture

In spite of its young age, aquaculture is now an activity subject to competition just like any other activity in the agri-food sector. The differences in environmental conditions give comparative advantages to operations located in certain sites, but the intensification of production methods tends to reduce the impact of this natural variation. It is for this reason that aquaculture must seek sources of competitiveness in the quality of its products, which is not limited to just freshness or taste and includes meeting the increasing demand for diversity. A quality process requires knowing how to assess modifications in product characteristics with respect to environmental conditions and culture techniques and should allow producers and consumers to clearly identify the different quality-labelled products. The examples of quality programmes applied to oyster and bass illustrate the difficulty in establishing quality labels and the necessity of an approach that includes culture techniques and socio-economic aspects, such as the one successfully employed in Norway for salmon. Aquaculture is a recent activity, and often still in the developmental stage, but has already been confronted with international competition and a rapid change in distribution channels. Among the five recent biggest successes in aquaculture on the international level, three involve species that are intensively traded around the world (tropical shrimp, king scallops, salmon), while the other two only face national competition (catfish in the USA and the Japanese amberjack in Japan). The French market is highly favourable to aquaculture products as attests the high consumption of oysters, salmon and shrimp, but it is also highly competitive. Confronted with rapid change in the modes of distribution and consumption of seafood products in France, aquaculture business must hone their competitive edge not only by decreasing costs and industrialising production, but also by diversifying products and defining standards of quality. In the case of marine aquaculture, taking technical, environmental and organizational constraints into account helps anticipate the difficulties that shellfish operations may face in adopting a quality process, both individually and collectively.