Dioxin salmon and dioxin fishmeal?
Managing Director TripleNine, Nils Christian Jensen writes:
The heading may be somewhat cryptic, but it refers to the fact that Denmark is now allowed to export salmon with increased dioxin content to third countries.
In this connection, the Danish Plant Directorate also allowed the export of fishmeal with increased dioxin content, only to withdraw the permission three days later. In connection with the fishmeal permission, the Plant Directorate had committed a foot fault.
The event has caused some debate, for instance in the specialist magazine Ingeniøren (The Engineer), where I expressed my surprise at the permission, especially in the light of the fact that TripleNine has invested more than DKK 150 million in plants for extracting dioxin from fishmeal and fish oil.
Extraction is necessary
It is no secret that extracting dioxin from both fishmeal and fish oil is expensive – costs which can only be passed on to the fishermen as the customers are not prepared to pay extra to buy a legal product. In fact, the customers expect to get legal products.
All fish contain dioxin and fish from the Baltic Sea contain so much that dioxin extraction from both fishmeal and fish oil is necessary. Depending on size, fat content and age, sand eel, North Sea sprat and blue whiting can contain so much dioxin content that the fishmeal and fish oil produced exceed the dioxin limits set by the EU.
Such products may therefore not be sold either in the EU or to third countries without extracting the dioxin.
Expensive to comply with the legislation
Although there are more than 30 fishmeal factories around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, we do not know how they solve the problem. In this connection, it should be mentioned that the Swedish fishmeal industry has been closed down as a result of the EU rules.
According to the EU rules, the problem may not be solved by for instance mixing a batch containing too much dioxin with a batch containing less in order to produce a mixture with a dioxin content that ”complies with” the legislation.
We know of two factories, FF and TripleNine, which have publicly announced that they have invested significant amounts in solving the problems. On today’s market, these costs are competition-distorting in relation to the factories that have failed to make similar investments although they sell products in the EU where this legislation applies.
We can only conclude that complying with current legislation is evidently expensive!
This article is taken from the latest issue of the 999 Newsletter. Download the complete issue of 999 News No. 3 - 2009.
