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THE Norwegian Seafood Export Council is planning a major sales drive in the UK this year. Karin Olsen, the council’s marketing manager told the Norwegian Seafood Conference in Grimsby last week that they had been given extra financial resources to finance that campaign.
At around £250-million a year, Britain is Norway’s sixth largest buyer of Norwegian fish, with Russia and France heading the list.
In tonnages, exports to the UK were more or less equally divided between farmed salmon and whitefish, but salmon was the much larger revenue earner because of the increase in prices (up 26 per cent in 20l0).
Ms Olsen said: “Norway is known for its clear cold waters and its long tradition in harvesting the ocean. But we also take care of our resources and this gives Norwegian seafood real value. It is important for us to communicate that message.
“Our mission here at the export council is to win the world over to Norwegian seafood. We want the consumer, the housewife, to think about Norway when she is buying seafood.”
She said there were also challenges facing the industry such as linking up with the buyers and with the end users, who need inspiration and motivation to put Norwegian cod and haddock on the menu. Another challenge was countering “a lot of negative noise” on sustainability from the NGOs.
“We have a positive message of a healthy and tasty food and we need to get that message across.”
Morten Jensen, sales and marketing vice president for Norway Seafoods, part of the Aker group, said his company was dedicated to exporting to Europe and the UK and, for that reason had its production sites in Norway or Europe.
“We don’t need to send fish to China was processing in order to sell it back to Europe,” he added. He also said that Norway Seafoods policy was to reduce its carbon footprint as much as possible, preferring to export fish by road, rail and sea rather than by air.
White fish stocks in the Barents Sea were in excellent shape with Norway receiving a cod quota this year of well over 300,000 tons and haddock was in even better shape with the quota up by 25 per cent.
Tone Karstensen, fresh fish sales director for the Nordic Group, said her company was also keen to increase exports to the UK – and through Grimsby.
She thought that British supermarkets were excellent in the way they presented fish on their display shelves. “They are at least five years ahead of similar stores in Norway.”
She felt there excellent opportunities with white halibut which she said was most versatile of species and to fish what steak was to meat. “You can’t fail with white halibut even if you are the most careless of cooks.” She also recommended Norwegian scallops which she said were not trawled, but all hand picked by divers.
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