Xuyi crayfish spent heavily on anti-counterfeiting but met with a cold reception and was squeezed out of the market
The Jiangsu Xuyi Crayfish Association, which claims that 90 percent of the “Xuyi crayfish” sold in Shanghai are counterfeit, last year sued two Shanghai catering businesses in court on grounds of infringing its exclusive trademark rights, with one of them facing a claim of more than 210,000 yuan. The association's anti-counterfeiting efforts in Shanghai have lasted more than ten years, and because results were scant, it took the judicial route.
However, a recent visit to the market by reporters found that this move did not help authentic Xuyi crayfish capture the market; instead, the vast majority of wholesalers and catering outlets in Shanghai favored crayfish from other places of origin even more.
Ni Zhijun, supervisor of the aquatic product information management section at the Tongchuan Road aquatic products market, said that the market currently circulates an average of about 40,000 to 50,000 kg of crayfish per day, and none of it comes from Xuyi. The main sellers are crayfish from the two lakes (Hunan and Hubei), accounting for 60 percent of the market's total sales, followed by Anhui crayfish, Jiangsu crayfish and Shandong crayfish, which evenly split the remaining 40 percent. Reporters visited the aquatic products area of the Shanghai Agricultural Wholesale Market and the Jiangyang North Road aquatic products market and found that Xuyi crayfish faced a similar situation.
In restaurants, this phenomenon is even more obvious. “With good water quality and good feed, the crayfish raised are all about the same; once you add the thirteen-spice seasoning, there is almost no difference.” The owner of a barbecue shop on Dongshufang Road said that he only picks good crayfish, regardless of whether they are from Xuyi.
Why has Xuyi crayfish fallen out of favor? Old Du, who has done crayfish business in the Tongchuan Road aquatic products market for 17 years, said bluntly that crayfish are not judged by their “background” but only by cost-effectiveness——whether the meat quality is good and whether the price is low. According to him, in recent years Shandong has made a strong push in crayfish farming, and coupled with prices more favorable than Xuyi's, its market share has already left Xuyi crayfish “several streets” behind. Although the water quality for farming crayfish from the two lakes is not as good as Shandong's, their quality is recognized and their prices are lower, further squeezing the market space for Xuyi crayfish.
After spending heavily and investing effort in anti-counterfeiting, Xuyi crayfish instead failed to gain the attention of operators and consumers, and was even squeezed out of the market by other competitors. Some industry insiders pointed out that a large part of the reason lies in the fact that “Xuyi crayfish” chose the wrong protection strategy. In the final analysis, Xuyi crayfish still lacks “distinctive differences” compared with other crayfish. “If you are not afraid of others imitating and copying, you must fully highlight the characteristics of the geographical indication, so that others cannot copy it even if they want to.” said Lin Haihan, director of the trademark division of the municipal industry and commerce bureau. Rather than exhausting itself in anti-counterfeiting, it would be better to cultivate crayfish with prominent characteristics, expand farming scale on the premise of ensuring quality, improve cost-effectiveness, and at the same time perfect the traceability system for supply and marketing information, so as to truly gain market recognition.