Throughout 2017-2019 FRDC established the Fish and Chip awards as a way to create debate around seafood, raise its profile and use this as a vehicle to promote information about sustainability, fisheries management and the R&D being undertaken to underpin it. The approach worked very well generating more than 90,000 votes, hundreds of media articles and millions of consumer views of that media coverage.

There is a need to ensure the base developed in the first three years is not lost and that SIA continues to build on it and centralise consumer-facing activities under the industry’s brand, Great Australian Seafood.

SIA will continue to deliver retailers, consumers and media information on the sustainability of Australian seafood, underutilised species, FishNames, CoOL, along with any other relevant R&D and extension.

In this initial year of SIA management, we will investigate the opportunities for sponsorship of the program and develop a timeline for a self-sustaining model.

There is also a need for SIA to demonstrate how an activity such as foodservice and consumer awards can deliver tangible results. To do this, SIA is looking to capture consumer opinion, engage retailers and measure behaviour.