Faroe Business Report — The International Review of Faroe Islands Industry and Trade - Faroe Business Report — The International Review of Faroe Islands Industry and Trade

With the world’s only BRC certified fillet trawler active in the Barents Sea, vessel owner JFK invests more than 100m dkk (13.4m eur) to expand seafood harvesting and processing operations based on rising cod fisheries off Greenland.

Klaksvík’s fishing company JFK is expanding operations through fresh investments in Greenland’s resurgent cod fisheries. Through a joint venture led by JFK’s managing partner Hanus Hansen and Kim Hoegh-Dam, a Greenlandic business man, three processing facilities and seven fishing vessels have been purchased in a deal believed to open new vistas of opportunities. Mr Hansen called the venture “very interesting” with “very high potential.” Two of the Greenland processing facilities are located in Nanortalik and Qaqortoq, respectively, in the south, while the third one is located on the east coast, at Kuummiut.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to participate in developing Greenland’s fishing industry,” Mr Hansen said. “We’re looking at some very interesting prospects and I believe the business we’ll be working on has very high potential. The enthusiasm that Mr Hoegh-Dam and his people have demonstrated from day one has been very encouraging.”

Mr Hansen said that his company and other Faroese investors have hitherto invested in excess of 100 million dkk (13.4m eur) in the new venture, with their Greenland business partner and a Spanish seafood purchaser adding their share as well. “What we do in Greenland is catching cod and a few other species and process part of it onshore as salted fillets for markets in the Mediterranean; the rest gets whole-frozen for processing in China. So far we’ve invested over a hundred million in the project so we believe very strongly in its future success.”

With growing signs of cod stocks rebounding in Greenland, the optimism could be well founded. Mr Hansen has been in the fishing business for more than three decades, or since he was a teenager. After a few years on longliners and trawlers as a young lad, he went to navigation school and graduated first as navigator and subsequently as master mariner. In 1982, he joined the fillet trawler Enniberg as first mate, and later became captain of the ship, which JFK had sold to Mortan Johannesen a few years earlier.

After sailing for fourteen years with the Enniberg, Mr Hansen came ashore to work for vessel owner/operator JFK in 1996, taking office as managing director; a few years on he purchased the majority of the company’s shares.

When the 185m dkk (24.8m eur) Skálaberg was built, in 2003, it was recognized as the world’s most advanced filleter/freezer trawler. As JFK’s fifth trawler to be named Skálaberg — the first came in 1933 — she is still seen as the ultimate modern-day version of the Faroe Islands’ century-old tradition to hunt cod and other whitefish in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea.

JFK’s other fillet trawler, the Sundaberg, some fifteen years older than the Skálaberg, basically works the same waters, producing “fresher than fresh,” frozen-at-sea fillets in a similar way.

Presumably as the only fishing vessel in the world, Skálaberg recently renewed its BRC (British Retail Consortium) certificate, held since 2006 — a ticket to produce portions and fillets directly to UK retailers.

“Skálaberg is extremely well equipped and I wish we’d be leveraging her superiority more to our advantage,” Mr Hansen commented. “The BRC certification is in itself quite out of the ordinary… I’m not aware of any other fishing vessel having earned it. Well, it means we have privileged access to the UK retail market, which of course can be of high value.”

Fishing in the Arctic, whether the Barents Sea or off Greenland, has been at the core of JFK business for most of a century. The company was founded in 1913 by Joen Frederik Kjölbro, a Klaksvík local who developed an enterprise that had a huge impact on the community, employing one-fourth of the town’s then 4,000 inhabitants.

“Barents Sea cod has long been our most important source of business,” Mr Hansen added. “This company has been involved there for generations and had fishing boats in Greenland for decades. I remember the old Faroese base — I was there in the 1970s. I think JFK had about seven vessels there at some point. So… being able to get involved again in Greenland and getting such a welcoming reception there is something we really appreciate.”

In addition to Skálaberg and Sundaberg, JFK has two pelagic trawlers, Næraberg and Carlton, owned together with Aker BioMarine of Norway. These vessels fish species like blue whiting, herring, mackerel, capelin and sprat in Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and EU waters.

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