Royal Greenland in China – Extensive experience and new opportunities In this article, Sales Director Finn Laursen takes a look at Royal Greenland’s experiences in China and the ever emerging new opportunities as Chinese purchasing power grows. By: Finn Laursen & Ditte Lund Royal Greenland’s involvement in China took its first small steps in 1995/96 when we purchased Jadekost in Germany (the current factory in Wilhelmshaven), which had already been buying raw materials from Chinese producers for a number of years. In the late nineties, there was a veritable boom in sales of cooked shrimp to China, from a level of 4-5,000 tons in 1996 to 20,000 tons in 1997 and approximately 40,000 tons in the following years. As a result of this boom, the very small shrimp previously used for industrial purposes could now be sold as cooked shrimp at a much better price. Demand was high and prices increased by the week, especially during the peak season leading up to the Chinese New Year. On a single Friday in 1998, Royal Greenland shipped 32 containers with cooked shrimp to China – more than we have exported to China in the whole of the current financial year. Since then, Russia has surpassed China as the most important market in the world for cooked, unpeeled coldwater shrimp. Prices on the Chinese market fluctuate greatly depending on season, with good – and sometimes even high – prices for shrimp in connection with the Chinese National Day celebrations on 1 October and the Chinese New Year in January/February. During Royal Greenland’s start-up phase in China, the market was controlled by a relatively small group of no more than 20 importers in the seafood industry. Shrimp could only be imported by those with an import quota. These quotas were traded actively between Chinese companies, sometimes illegally, resulting in some consolidation and a cleanup among the importers. Today, the vast majority of our shrimp is sold to the Chinese market through a single importer in Shanghai, with whom we have a close collaboration. From here, the shrimp are sold directly in Shanghai or distributed to many of the larger cities in China, particularly Beijing, Shenyang, Dalian, Qingdao, Jinan, Xian and Chengdu, where they are found in local markets and restaurants. Finn Laursen, Sales Director New focus on halibut In the late 90s, the Chinese also began to discover the Greenlandic halibut. Before then, we had sold a lot of halibut to Taiwan, which compared to China is a relatively small market. Thus it was natural to assume that China, which is so close to Taiwan geographically, culturally and gastronomically, had the potential to consume large quantities of halibut. The Chinese interest in halibut has grown gradually. In the beginning, there was only demand for halibut heads, which are considered a great delicacy. Then we began selling whole halibut with innards, as well as halibut tails, followed in recent years by gutted whole halibut and J-cut halibut (gutted, head and tail removed). The Chinese interest in halibut has largely contributed to setting prices on the global market. For example, halibut tails can now be sold at a higher price than 1-2 kg J-cut halibut was sold for just 15 years ago. As a result of the signifi- 4 NAVIGATIO NO. 37 2013
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