A trawler from Sealord's fleet. (Photo Credit: Sealord)
NEW ZEALAND
Thursday, August 14, 2014, 01:00 (GMT + 9)
Discussions are being carried out by two New Zealand's giant seafood companies in their effort to join forces.
Sealord and Sandford have revealed their intention to work together and “create a one fleet-type approach” in order to increase efficiencies.
"Why do we need three boats to go and catch a certain species of fish when we can just have two boats there and have some sort of cooperative arrangement? "What about processing facilities? Why do we need to have two factories, one on one side of the road, the other one on the other side?" asked Sanford inshore fisheries manager Shane Walsh at the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society's annual conference in reference to a recent meeting he had attended at Sealord, The Nelson Mail reported.
Walsh pointed out that competitors might work together to improve supply chain efficiencies and create value.
For his part, Sealord fishing general manager Doug Paulin endorsed Walsh's comments and added that both companies had excess fishing capacity, and consolidating their fleets would be "a huge opportunity to save costs in a pretty tough industry at the moment".
According to Paulin, while fishing was "as good as it's ever been", the industry was faced with an unfavourable exchange rate and commodity pricing of fish that was "not really going up", with margins being squeezed.
Walsh explained that they need to differentiate themselves and that they could do so by increasing efficiency by working with competitors, and by moving from sustainability to promoting the provenance of the product.
He also stressed that collaborations with science providers such as the Cawthron Institute, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Niwa) and Plant & Food Research were taking the industry forward through innovations such as a new trawling method unveiled last year.
And he added the Ministry for Primary Industries and NZ Trade and Enterprise were very supportive in ensuring market access.
Paulin told The Nelson Mail that Sealord and Sanford had been in talks for about six months and it is expected there would be another six months of discussions before changes leading into the 2015-16 fishing year.