LOCALLY caught barramundi and prawns are sitting on the wharf as cash-strapped shoppers turn to cheaper seafood.

Retailers are selling cut-price imports and fish-lovers are also turning to cheap local catches of blue salmon and mullet for about $17/kg.

Imported basa fillet and nile perch is also catching the eye of shoppers looking for cheap meals under $10, while local wild barramundi costs them $28.50/kg.

The revelation from fishos comes as the Queensland Seafood Industry Association prepares to launch a $410,000 advertising blitz in Cairns next month in a bid to save the Far North’s local seafood industry.

Cairns Ocean Products owner Stephen Georgouras backs the campaign and says the economy is in "dire straits" with people opting for alternatives that are on par with well-known favourites.

QSIA chief executive officer Martin Hicks says thousands of tonnes of prawns and hundreds of tonnes of barramundi caught around the state is stuck in storage as the import market makes most headway in the struggling economy.

"No one wants to buy them," he said. "A lot of the seafood in restaurants is actually imported.

"We’d like to equate a more efficient supply chain to get the seafood from the fishermen to the consumer.

"It’s really as a result of two things – the price of seafood hasn’t gone up in 20 years because of imports and the economics of fuel, regulation and marine parks."

Mr Georgouras says the campaign can only help the Far Northern industry.

"Instead of buying a fresh local barra fillet, they are buying cheaper Australian lines like a blue salmon fillet which is $17/kg," he said.

"Our fish consumption per head in this country is very low. It could be tripled without anybody eating any great excess of it."

Mr Hicks said there were now large unfished areas from Cairns to the Torres Strait because of a lack of profit in the industry.

He said the push for a resurgence of local products would not bring a seafood price hike.

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