January 14, 2013 — But while it’s clear business is brisk, there’s little else clear-cut about China’s wholesale seafood trade, especially when it comes to imports. Those who have lived some time in Beijing will be used to the lack of transparency or traceability in the grocery trade. Fish mongers in local supermarkets or wet markets I regularly visit rarely bother with labelling that describes the providence or production process in seafood on sale and often appear puzzled why you’d want to know who the producer might be.
Yes, retailers and restaurants have become increasingly keen to stress the providence of their goods when it’s imported: French oysters or Canadian crabs fetch a premium price. But it’s less about traceability than profit, with little effort to assure or educate customers about what they’re buying.
Part of the reason for this goes back to the Jingshen, and the nature of the trade. Many of the firms importing seafood come from non-seafood backgrounds. Some of the country’s larger seafood importers are in the mining (like the curiously-named Sunkfa International Trading Co, one of Beijing’s biggest importers) or manufacturing sectors and have studied the markups in seafood and piled in.
These are not seafood importers then in the traditional sense. But they’ve been lucky to corner one of the limited licenses from government that allows them to import seafood for domestic consumption. They’re very reluctant to talk about what they import, I’ve discovered, having made numerous attempts to interview executives of firms (including Sunkfa) I’ve been pointed to while hanging around the sprawling Jingshen market.
I can understand some of the reticence. Firms with the license to import seafood have been eager to ask me for new contacts and new sources of imports. But none have been willing to speak on the record about their trade.
Read the full story at Seafood Source