The Catalonia HUB to showcase the fish and seafood sector's potential at Seafood 2022

The potential of Catalonia's fish and seafood sector will be on show at Seafood 2022 through the Catalonia HUB, the Government of Catalonia's institutional pavilion run by the Directorate General for Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fisheries and PRODECA, the promoter of Catalan food, which will present the governance, sustainability, quality, local sourcing and innovation values of the fishing industry in Catalonia.  

The Catalonia HUB institutional stand is conceived as a meeting point for the whole Catalan fishing chain, through an audiovisual journey along the Catalan coast, the produce, the fish markets and the sea-going people who make Catalonia's fishing industry part of the country's cultural heritage.

On Wednesday 27 April, the Minister for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, Teresa Jordà, will take part in the opening of the Catalonia HUB, in an event serving as the Government of Catalonia's institutional welcome to Seafood Expo Global. The minister is expected to use her visit to the fair to call on several exhibiting companies.

Debating the present and future of the fish sector

Over the fair's three days, the Catalonia HUB will host around fifteen presentations and cross-cutting activities on the strategic role, culinary heritage and commercial potential of Catalonia's fish sector. 

The pavilion will serve as a space for reflection on Catalonia's maritime present and future, through the conferences organised by the Directorate General for Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fisheries.

On Tuesday 26 at 3.30pm there is a session on aquaculture and nature-based solutions, with Sergi Tudela, Director General for Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fisheries, Houssam Hamza, aquaculture officer at FAO-GFCM (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean), Georgios Paximadis, aquaculture specialist at FAO-GFCM, and Jordi Boada, researcher at CEAB-CSIC. Mario Muñoz of Microalgae Lab SL and Joan Solé of Organan Espirulina will also speak about microalgae projects, and Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda of Urchinomics will introduce the ecological and restorative role of sea urchin farming. You can find more information about the sea urchin project and how improved sea urchin farming can increase food security and livelihoods while preserving marine habitats in the Mediterranean region at this link. 

Two talks have been organised at the Catalonia HUB on Wednesday 27. The first, at 11am, will cover Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs), the future strategies of the Catalan Maritime Agenda 2030 and recognition of contributions to the Catalan Maritime Strategy 2030 (EMC2030), with Sergi Tudela, followed by a debate on FLAGs in Catalonia with representatives of the Costa Brava and Mar de l'Ebre FLAGs, the proposal to set up future FLAGs along the Barcelona and Tarragona coast, and recognition of the contribution to EMC2030 of the following initiatives: the White Paper on the Fish Sector, the television programme La Mar de Bé and the GastroMar food events.

The second session on Wednesday 27 will focus on generational renewal in the fish sector. It will open with a joint presentation by the Catalan and Basque governments, through Sergi Tudela and his Basque counterpart Leandro Azkue, Director General for Fisheries and Aquaculture, setting out both administrations' commitment to encouraging generational renewal in the fish sector. This will be followed by a round table with representatives of the Mercabarna Central Market Wholesalers' Guild, the Catalan Fishmongers' Guild and the Catalan National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds. The session will close with the presentation of the methodology for a social diagnosis of generational renewal in Catalonia's capture fishing sector, commissioned by the Directorate General for Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fisheries to encourage new entrants to fishing.

The Catalonia HUB will also host presentations of initiatives by Catalan organisations and companies, from varied backgrounds and on varied topics, all with the sea as the common thread. The institutional pavilion will host talks on the potential of fresh spirulina (by Organa Espirulina), bivalve farming in the Ebro Delta bay (FEPROMODEL), sustainability in Mediterranean aquaculture (Acuidelta), the role of marine Omega 3 in health (IRTA and the University of Girona) and a diagnosis of food loss and waste in the fish sector (CREDA-UPC-IRTA), as well as presentations such as Trucha Pirinea, the PESCANETA project by the Catalan National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds, and the Peix Blau de Catalunya Fisheries Producer Organisation.