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Maru Seafood: Emerging as New Major |
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Archives -
2007 Archive
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Written by A. Cross, B. Tyril
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Monday, 21 May 2007 |
Presiding over the country’s largest whitefish processing plant, two smokeries, eight fishing vessels, and a well-trained sales force, Maru Seafood is now an integrated fisheries group — and a main player in the Faroese seafood industry.
With an annual throughput of raw fish of 5000 tonnes in 2005, predicted to rise to 15,000 tonnes by the end of this year, Maru Seafood is set to triple production to make itself one of the largest seafood processors in the Faroe Islands. Although its prime function is as a processing company, the Maru Seafood group has recently acquired its own fishing vessels to secure its source of raw materials, making it an integrated fishing and processing company in its own right with its own fishing vessels at one end of the operation and its own sales organization at the other.
The Klaksvík-based Kósin factory, of which Maru Seafood owns a vast majority, handles the bulk of production, including salted cod fillets for the Spanish market, salted tusk and ling products for Italy and frozen saithe portions for France and Germany. The largest whitefish processing plant in the Faroes, Kósin was acquired in 2006 by a recapitalized Maru Seafood, now a group composed of Faroese owners Maru Holding and Tjaldur, and the Icelandic Group.
Overall, saithe is the main species for production, with between 8,000 and 10,000 tonnes expected to be processed this year, of which almost all is landed by the company’s own pair trawler teams, with much of this processed into 5kg portion packs which are supplied to supermarkets and the food service industry.
Frozen haddock goes into larger packs that are exported to the UK and packaged there into retail packaging. Exports of fresh fillets and loins directly to UK and European markets are becoming increasingly interesting and this is likely to become a focus of development in future, according to Maru Seafood managing director Jóhan Páll Joensen.
As well as the Kósin facility, Maru Seafood also holds a majority share in the Eystís factory in Klaksvík as well as the Norđís factory at Eiđi, both of which process smoked haddock for the UK market and smoked saithe for Ireland and France.
According to Mr Joensen, each of these companies trades as one of several individual company units, sourcing its own raw material with internal trading taking place under commercial conditions.
In fact, Eystís and Norđís are the only fish smokeries in the Faroes. “These smokeries receive 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of haddock on an annual basis and we are the only processor in the Faroe Islands producing smoked fish,” Mr Joensen says. “We ship approximately 1,500 tonnes of smoked haddock per year plus 500 tonnes of smoked saithe.”
One of the big changes in Maru Seafood is that the company has gone from being a processor to being an integrated seafood supplier with its own vessels, partly as a response to demands from overseas customers who had been wary about placing contracts with a supplier without its own source of raw material.
Previously the factories had bought virtually all their raw material on the Faroe Fish Market auction, but this has changed with the acquisition of longliners Fugltúgvan and Grani. These two vessels supply the bulk of haddock and cod that go into saltfish and smoked haddock production. For the highly quality-conscious saltfish market, using longline-sourced fish is an important factor.
As well as taking fish from its own vessels, some fish is also bought on the auction at Toftir when required and any catches that do not fit in with the processing framework are sold the same way if necessary.
The volume catches, primarily saithe, are supplied by the three pair trawler teams Safir and Smaragd, Fjalshamar and Nónhamar, and Borgarin and Navarin. The last four of these trawlers were bought from fishing company Framherji, which — retaining a minority share in them — originally acquired the four vessels as part of the package with freezer trawler Vesturvón.
With a new sourcing strategy, not only have regular supplies been secured — quality management has likewise been improved, says Mr Joensen.
“Having our own fleet of vessels makes production more stable as landings can be directed to where they are needed and trip length can be managed to maintain a steady flow of production across the company. This also has quality implications and allows for more effective planning and management, and maintaining high product quality remains a major focus.”
Link to pdf presentation...
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