Close to the fish – close to the consumer part II Mikael Thinghuus, CEO In the last number of Navigatio, I asserted that Royal Greenland’s unique strength is that we are both close to the fish and close to our customers. By far the majority of companies in the fishing industry are either involved in fishing or in sales – but not in both – which creates space for a small army of middlemen and traders who all have to earn a living from bringing the fish all the way from the sea to the dinner table. At the end of the day, the cost of these middlemen has to be borne by fishermen and consumers. Standing against these are Royal Greenland and a handful of other companies who own the entire value chain all the way from the fish to the consumer. This is a unique position, and one from which we already enjoy considerable benefits. And it is a position we need to capit alise on much more in the coming years. What does this position give us today? Here are a couple of examples: Given that we process, pack and sell the prawns we catch and land ourselves, we have been able to continually ensure that they are sold in the processed variants and in the markets where they can fetch the best price. When we move prawns from a low-price to a high-price market, Royal Greenland earns the difference – not some arbitrary middleman. And this also means that we can pay a higher price to the prawn fishermen who supply to us. Another example I would like to mention, even though it is slightly more complex, is that our close relations with European retail customers, combined with our production set-up in Koszalin in Poland, have enabled us to plan for an aggressive expansion of our cod business. We all expect cod fishing in Greenland to grow – and quite considerably – in the coming years, and because we handle our own sales, we are already able to plan how the cod we expect to land can achieve the best sales prices. We can and must further exploit our position as one of the few companies which knows both the fishermen and the consumer – but how do we do so? Generally, there is one thing we must do better: We must, more so than at present, take consumer preferences as our starting point. Our job involves more than catching fish and selling them at the best possible price. Our job is also to understand what consumers most enjoy eating, and endeavour to procure the fish required to meet their wishes. Today we have a good understanding of what the European consumer wants. This is because we have been involved with the European markets for many years. In future, we must be just as good at understanding what consumers outside Europe want. Understanding consumers better is, in my view, the key to making the most of the fish species found around Greenland which are not being used commercially today. Royal Greenland A/S · P.O. Box 1073 · 3900 Nuuk · Greenland · Tel.: +299 36 13 00 · Fax: +299 32 33 49 · royalgreenland@royalgreenland.com · www.royalgreenland.com Navigatio is published by Royal gReeNlaNd a/s editoR: layout: Info Design aps The magazine is free and can be ordered from royalgreenland@royalgreenland.com Káte Hansen, kaha@royalgreenland.com pRiNtiNg: Specialtrykkeriet Viborg as
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