[Shot of Jean Côté talking, indoors.]
Jean Côté: Hello, Jean Côté, I’m Scientific Director for the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie. We’re at our offices here in Chandler.
[Background music begins, successive shots of a beach.]
We’re at the end of the Baie des Chaleurs, at the beginning of the Rocher-Percé area. And it’s an area where there are, in fact, a lot of lobster fishermen.
[Shot of Percé Rock, of a boat moored at the dock, then of the sea and finally of a coastline.]
For a long time now, the fishermen association has been taking action to promote sustainable fishing. Obviously, we’re a small fishery.
[Back to Jean, music stops.]
We have 146 captain-owners. There are 12 permits that belong to the 3 First Nations of the Gaspé Peninsula. So, it’s a small volume compared to what we have that comes from the Magdalen Islands alone, where there are 325 fishermen. And that’s not to mention the thousands of fishermen in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
[Music resumes, shot of a harbor, and a ship coming in to dock.]
So, there’s a lot of lobster. Part of it comes here and another part is exported. But these are figures I can’t go into in detail. Back in 2010, we were already talking about traceability, and we started on a very small scale to test it out.
[Shot of two men handling ropes to moor the boat, music stops.]
For us, it was important to regain a place in our market. So, we wanted to improve our image and bring lobster back to the forefront. And for us, traceability was the best way to go.
[Shot of crates being transferred from boat to truck, of a crate full of lobsters.]
Then the way we came up with was to say, “it has to be traceable from the fisherman to the consumer”. Because what happens in between, for us, it’s very difficult to know what goes on.
[Back to Jean showing a medallion.]
There are different buyers, different distributors. It’s complicated. But for us, we said, “Ah, the idea was to find a little medallion”. A little medallion where you could say, “It’s the fisherman who puts it on the lobster himself on board the boat. It follows the lobster to the end”.
[View of the website with the words “Traceable from sea to plate” and demonstration of how it works.]
So, the consumer says, “Ah, that’s from the Gaspé Peninsula!” It’s certified, and there’s a number unique to each of our fishermen on the medallion.
[Shot of Jean’s hands holding a medallion with the Aliments du Québec logo.]
Oh and, yeah, I forgot about the Aliments du Québec logo. We wanted to say “It’s local. It’s bought locally. It comes from home”.
[View on the website pages.]
And the little number unique to each fisherman, which is entered on our monhomard.ca website, lets you go and see your fisherman. Me, I like to tell people, “You can see your fisherman”. This experience is more than just a culinary experience of eating the best lobster at the best time. It’s a cultural, social and traditional experience, because there’s a 30-second video with each of our fishermen. That was unique, and I think it still is, as far as I know, unique on the web; this is a way of allowing traceability and also to get closer to consumers.
[Zoom in on a video featured on the website of a fisherman fishing lobsters and placing the medallion on their claws, music resumes.]
But traceability is here to stay, that’s for sure. Today’s Quebec consumers demand it. They want to know what they’re eating. They want to know that it’s sustainable, that it’s safe. And to my great surprise, there are still people finding out every year that our lobster is traceable.
[Back to Jean.]
So, it’s a lengthy job, it’s a work of education. And it allows me to do what I’m doing here with you today, talking about traceability, talking about lobster, talking about fishing, talking about its biology, its quality, the status of the resource.
So, people are interested in learning more and then going a little further than just their plate.
[Close-up shot of a lobster claw with the medallion.]
Traceability has made it possible for us to do all of that.
[Exploramer logo.]
[Background music stops.]
