Over the last decade, marine fish hatcheries have developed in very different ways according to the species reared. By comparing the seabass and seabream hatcheries on the one hand, to the turbot and meagre hatcheries on the other, it is easy to see the impact of the hatcheries on the whole market situation for the final product.
Due to the successful mastery of the technology linked to the production of seabass and seabream, hatcheries for these species have developed at a tremendous rate over the last ten years, making it possible to quickly increase the ongrowing production capacity, which in turn led to a market crisis and drop of prices. Caught in the storm, some hatcheries in some countries are now in a very weak financial position as they have also become the ‘banker’ of their customers. This might push some of them to close down in the near future; it could push a lot of them to reduce further their production costs, at the expense of quality, to respond to the demand of their financially hard-pressed customers.
Harmonised European rules concerned with legal delays of payment or other commercial aspects are urgently needed.
Turbot or meagre hatcheries on the other hand have a better control of the market situation, as the hatchery techniques for those species have only been mastered by a few companies so far.