Raising eels for sale and restocking

A Lithuanian eel farming company, Fish & Fish, produces a variety of value-added eel products that are sold through specialised fish shops in upmarket locations in Lithuanian cities.

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) has a complex life cycle, migrating thousands of kilometres from freshwater rivers to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. However, due to factors such as over shing, habitat loss, and climate change, the wild eel population has experienced a sharp decline. In response, many European countries have turned to eel farming as a means to meet the demand for eels while reducing pressure on wild stocks.

Eel farming in Europe involves rearing eels from glass eels, which are young eels that have just entered freshwater systems. ese young eels are typically collected from the wild or purchased from specialised suppliers. Once obtained, they are placed in specially designed tanks or ponds and grown to the desired market size.

Lithuania’s only eel producer raises eels sustainably

Fish & Fish, Lithuania’s sole eel farmer, sells mainly live and gutted eels to smokehouses all over Lithuania. We are hoping to do more processing and packaging of our own products and even expand their production to other sh, explained, Martynas Greviskis, the business development manager. After all, we’re called Fish & Fish, so we really should be o ering more than one type of sh, he jests.

Two years ago, in an e ort to make production more e cient and sustainable the company installed software that helps to manage and track the production and that generates extensive data about their farm. Analysis of the feed and production costs per tank has increased e ciency as a lot has been learned from comparing different feeds and batches. It also allows for traceability. eir sales are primarily in Lithuania with signi cant exports to the Netherlands (live eels) and some to Poland and Latvia. Mr Greviskis explains that there are quotas on how many glass eels can be caught and sold and on how many need to be used for restocking. Farming eels, a process which starts with wild caught glass eels, is inherently sustainable, he argues. If left in the wild it would take thousands of glass eels to yield a single mature eel due to the high mortality rates they su er. As the mature eel prepares to head for the Sargasso Sea to reproduce, it could be caught by a sher. In contrast, glass eels on an eel farm have a survival rate of 97 or 98 and a proportion of them are used for restocking purposes once they have reached a certain size. e places where they are reintroduced into the wild are selected to give them the best chances of growing to maturity and reaching the Sargasso Sea. Fish & Fish therefore releases a portion of its annual eel stock into lakes and rivers to help restore eel populations.

Fish shop specialised in locally produced freshwater sh items

Fish & Fish has developed a number of value-added products from the eel it produces including gutted and smoked eel, smoked eel llets, smoked eel in jelly, gutted and frozen eel, and frozen eel llets. ese products are sold through specialised delicatessen stores, and a mobile shop that is based close to the entrance of a smart farmers’ market in Vilnius. e original idea was that the trailer would move from one location to another in the city following a xed schedule. But this turned out to be more complicated than envisaged as all the products had rst to be removed, the risk of damage to the refrigeration units had to be considered, and the trailer was di cult to manoeuvre. e mobile shop therefore is kept at this location over weekends, when people do their shopping. ere are, of course, costs associated with having the trailer in the form of rent and electricity charges which must be considered. However, the decision to have the trailer was not based solely on a cost-bene t analysis as there are sometimes bene ts that are di cult to place a value on. Sales from the trailer are not huge, but because of the trailer’s presence, Mr Greviskis started getting calls from some big companies that were interested in the products he was selling. Having the trailer here is like a giant advertisement for us, he says.

When another shop selling similar products at the site closed, Mr Greviskis spied an opportunity. He entered into a collaboration with a farmer and processor of sturgeon, carp, and trout. is is a pilot project, says Mr Greviskis, to see if a wider assortment of products will draw more customers to the shop. If it works well, he will consider collaborating with other producers. Shops that specialise in sh products are not common and when they exist, they tend to focus on products based on imported marine sh. Mr Greviskis’ idea is to have a delicatessen sh store promoting high quality items processed from domestically produced freshwater sh.

Fish & Fish is a member of the Lithuanian Fish Farmers’ and Producers’ Association, a body that was originally envisaged as an association of pond farmers. For producers using recirculation aquaculture systems, like Fish & Fish, there is also another association, Modern Aquaculture, of which the company is also a member. However, issues faced by pond farmers are sometimes the same as those faced by farmers using recirculation technology, says Mr Greviskis, but not always. For example, compensation for losses incurred by farmers due to the pandemic was calculated di erently depending on the method of production. Among the tasks of the association is to assist farmers in seeking compensation in such situations. Another is to organise generic promotion campaigns to encourage consumers to eat more Lithuanian freshwater sh. One eel-focused campaign appeared on national television and demonstrated ways to prepare the sh. e company has another shop in a mall that has opened in a newly developed part of Vilnius. e area is full of residential apartments and to attract the residents the mall o ers attractions for children, so they can be occupied while a parent does the shopping. is brings people to the mall who may or may not buy anything, but it is important to have this tra c, Mr Greviskis says. Visitors tend to be most numerous over the weekends and so he ensures that the Fish & Fish shop is well-stocked with a wide assortment of products. Among them is the smoked eel llet, three pieces of which are sold in a packet for EUR 8. Customers that know and like the product will buy it without considering the price, but others may prefer cold smoked salmon, which is very well represented, or perhaps cold smoked tuna. But it is in the fresh products that competition is particularly intense, Mr Greviskis remarks, as fresh eel must compete not only with other fresh sh but also with meat.

A Fish & Fish store specialises in domestically farmed and processed freshwater products.

Building a market for small eels took a sustained effort

At the shop, Valdas Nariūnas, the manager, is busy building a market for the eel, informing customers how to use and how to prepare the sh. Five years ago there was no demand for small eels in Lithuania. Instead, the demand was for specimens a kilo and more in size. We really had to start from scratch, says Mr Greviskis, educating the customer. is meant o ering smokehouses the sh for them to smoke and hoping that its popularity would grow as people came to appreciate the product. Today the small eels are much more popular than the large sh, he says, but the interesting thing is that the sales of large eels has not diminished, but they have become a di erent product category from the small eels. is development explains why Fish

& Fish’s sales of large eels have increased slightly over the last ve years, while sales of small eels have risen sharply. e company’s sales are primarily through its shops, the Horeca sector, and other processors. It does not deal directly with supermarkets, but often customers for the frozen eel process it and sell the processed product through supermarkets.

Exporting smoked eels to other countries that are traditional consumers of this product is no easy task, as buyers for this specialised item are conservative and tend to want to stick to the product and the

Fish & Fish

Kaštonų g. 15, Skudutiškio k., Suginčių sen. 33322 Molėtų r. sav., Lithuania

Tel: +370 677 84705 martynas@eelfarm.eu www.fishfish.lt

Business Development Manager: Martynas Greviskis

Vice-chairman: Andrius Breive supplier they have known probably for the last many years. Moreover, if o ered a copy of the product they have already, most buyers would rather stick with the original. Mr Greviskis thinks the answer lies in nding markets where smoked eel is a novelty and then educating potential buyers, just as was done in Lithuania. Building a market, however, is a long drawn out and expensive a air that could easily take 3-4 years. Despite this he is looking at Estonia and at an even more potentially interesting country, Poland, where the market is big and products using small eels remain to be discovered.

Production: 200-240 tonnes per year

Products: Live and gutted eel

Value added products: Smoked eel, smoked eel fillets, smoked eel in jelly, gutted and frozen eel, and frozen eel fillets

Markets: Lithuania, Netherlands

Customers: Shops, Horeca, processing companies

Own outlets: Mobile shop, specialised stores