Sat, Aug 18, 2001 page19

• Pricier mussels in Brussels as supply slumps

  Belgians are having to shell out more for their shellfish as the Netherlands' production has slumped drastically

  • BLOOMBERG
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  When they reach for their wallets to pay for dinner this fall, Belgian diners will have some heavy lifting to do: Mussel prices are way up.

  Two thirds of all Dutch mussels are eaten by Belgians, who like them in wine sauce with fries and mayonnaise. This year foam algae, which suffocate the larvae, and hungry sand piper birds have cut supplies to the lowest level in a decade.

  Mussel traders expect to harvest less than 45,000 tonnes of the black bivalve mollusks, compared with over 100,000 tonnes in years of high production.

  Prices at Europe's only mussel auction, in the Dutch town of Yerseke, have increased a third this year and tripled in the last three years to 444 guilders (US$180) for 100kg. All Dutch mussels pass through the auction, which has annual sales of between 120 million guilders and 150 million guilders.

  "The quality of the mussels itself is very good, but prices are high, and that's not good," said Frank Wiskerke, born in a mussel restaurant and owner of one of the 10 mussel restaurants in Philippine, a Dutch town whose population triples with 4,000 mussel-loving visitors a day in summer season.

  Producers are concerned that until supplies rise again, higher prices and lower stocks mean loss of market share to competitors abroad, said Arnoud Leerling, director of the Dutch Mussel Office in Yerseke. The Netherlands imported almost 20,000 tonnes of mussels a year in the last decade to make up its shortfall.

  "We will lose part of our market and it will take years to get that back," Leerling said. "This year we will have only enough mussels for the Benelux market and our mussels are too expensive for other markets." The Netherlands vies with Italy for second place after Spain in producing the most mussels in the 15-nation EU. The EU produces around 500,000 tonnes of mussels a year, about two fifths of world production, according to the European Commission. China, Korea and New Zealand are the other large mussel producers.

  Dutch mussels are special. At up to 6cm long, North Atlantic mytilus edulis mussels are larger than their Mediterranean cousins. While Dutch mussels have been grown on the seabed for well over 200 years, mussels from western France, western Spain, Italy and Greece are often grown hanging from ropes or in sea channels.

  Six Dutch wholesalers dominate mussel processing, including Roem van Yerseke BV, Aquamossel BV and Delta Mossel BV. Market leader Prins & Dingemanse BV buys almost 30 percent of the mussels at Yerseke's auction.

  "The lack of volume is compensated by higher price, but not by a higher profit," says Edwin Foudraine, the commercial director at Prins & Dingemanse.

  In the cluster of seafood establishments at Brussels' long-defunct inland port, many restaurants are putting up their prices.

  Bij den Boer has raised the price of a 1.2kg pot of mussels with fries to BF650 (US$14.73) from BF600.

  "It's becoming a luxury product," said the restaurant's owner, Geert Heyvaert. "But most of the people who come here have mussels, even if they are 50 francs more expensive." Zaghdoudi Ali, manager of Aux Arcades restaurant in the city's seafood-lined Rue des Bouchers, says while he has not increased the price of a 1kg pot of mussels with fries from BF695, he has had to take mussels off the lunch menu.

  In the Netherlands, naturally occurring "mussel seed" is dredged and sown in the shallow estuaries of Zeeland's Oosterschelde and Waddenzee where, once developed, the larvae attach themselves by threads to form carpets on the seabed, before being taken to nursery beds rich in vegetable plankton.

  After two or three years, the adults are sorted by weight and auctioned by the shipload to wholesalers, who return them to shallow tidal waters to mature and purge themselves of sandy mud.

  Then they're harvested, scrubbed and shipped live across Europe to be cooked, often "a la mariniere" with white wine, shallots, parsley and butter, and eaten.

  Most mussels are sold fresh, although some are canned or frozen, allowing them to be eaten in the warm summer months when female mussels are pregnant as well in the colder months.

  Companies such as Prins en Dingemanse now also use sealed bags containing oxygen and carbon dioxide to keep live mussels fresh and juicy for up to a week.

  Mussel traders also face an ongoing battle with conservationists trying to limit fishing of mussel seed, the preferred diet of birds such as eiderducks. The Dutch government decided in 1992 to establish a national mussel seed quota setting the percentage of seed that can be fished annually, divided up among the mussel farmers.

  While the average Dutch household consumes 5kg of mussels a year, the average Belgian household eats three times that.

  "Our guests ask for the typical Dutch Zeeland mussel," said restaurateur Wiskerke. "The French like very small mussels. The Belgians, our greatest customers, like a bigger mussel." Brussels restaurant Comme Chez Soi, with the maximum three Michelin stars, is planning to offer this season's North Atlantic mussels in a gueuze beer sauce with Ghentish mustard to tantalize the palate.

  "The mussels are very fleshy, big and beautiful," said Lionel Rigolet, son-in-law and assistant to chef and owner Pierre Wynants. "People adore mussels in Belgium."
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