From Itilleq to Brussels In our strategy – The North Atlantic Champion – we talk about being closest to the fish and closest to the customers and the consumers. Fish and consumers are equally important, and it is our ability to tie the two together that will decide Royal Greenland’s continued success. I hope and believe that very many of us have now understood this message. You can then ask yourself: Why don’t all the other businesses just follow suit? The answer is that they don’t because it is pretty hard to do so. It is hard to make a profit out of fishing and its related products. This is evident from the number of bankruptcies which have been suffered by the Greenland fishing industry in the past year alone. Right now, Royal Greenland is basically the only processor of cod and lumpfish roe on the Greenland west coast. It is just as difficult to sell the fish at a decent profit. As we know, consumers are spread all over the world. To reach them, it requires strong local sales organisations which can trade on an equal footing with the very large retailers and food service wholesalers (i.e. companies supplying restaurants and canteens) which dominate the world market for foods. Given the fact that the fish and shrimp we catch and process come from the North Atlantic while the majority of the people whom we want to buy and eat them live several thousand kilometres to the south, it is, in every respect, a tricky task tying “closest to the fish” and “closest to the consumer” together. On top of the considerable geographical distances between the fish and consumers, there are also huge differences between the surroundings where the fish are caught and where they are eaten. Our fish and shrimps come from magnificent, untamed nature, where there are vast distances between the towns and settlements on Greenland, many of them very small. In the places where our products are caught and produced, fish and shrimp are central to the economic and commercial well-being of the entire community. Yet by far the majority of our fish and shrimp are consumed in surroundings which could not be more different: In metropolises in Europe and Asia which are far removed from anything that resembles unspoilt nature. The millions CEO Mikael Thinghuus attending the citizens’ meeting in Itilleq. Opposite him sits factory manager in Sisimiut, Vivi Høy Labansen. 2 NAVIGATIO NO. 2 2014
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