Norway’s whitefish exporters will take advantage of the United Kingdom’s surging appetite for cod to drive sales of frozen-at-sea (FAS) products into the market this year, with most of their effort going on the country’s iconic fish-and-chip trade.
Last year, Norwegian cod exports totaled NOK 12 billion (EUR 1.4 billion/USD 1.6 billion), an increase of 20 percent. The Scandinavian country’s biggest growth market for cod was the United Kingdom, which imported 23,082 metric tons (MT) of the whitefish in 2014, 33 percent more than in the previous year. The value of this trade was around NOK 600 million (EUR 68.3 million; USD 79.2 million), which resulted in the United Kingdom leapfrogging Brazil to become Norway’s fourth-most important export market for the species last year.
While Norwegian exporters have built up a 20 percent share of the U.K. cod market, there’s still plenty more for them to go after, said Jack-Robert Moller, Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) director for the United Kingdom.
“Cod consumption in the United Kindom increased a lot in 2014. It was 10 percent higher at the end of 2014 than it was at the beginning of 2011,” he said. “Looking at the 10 most preferred species in the market, cod is now the preferred weekday dinner, as well as a weekend dinner and for eating out. It ticks all the boxes for consumers and it’s a product with a long tradition in the country.”
U.K. haddock consumption, meanwhile, has dropped in all categories over the past two years. This is largely due to falling quotas and the subsequent price increases, which has resulted in the species being substituted with cod by many retailers, said Moller.
Compared with 2013, the price of Norwegian cod exports has also increased over the past 12 months. However, the average price remains at a very low level — about the same as it was in the year 2000, he said.
The NSC intends to capitalize on the increased cod consumption trend and the fact that most U.K. fish and chip shops — or “chippies” — depend on FAS fillets at some stage during the year by promoting Norway’s FAS cod within the fish-and-chip industry, which Moller said is already a “very important” sector for the Norwegian whitefish industry.
The NSC took its first steps in this direction last year by getting a number of chippies that sell FAS fish to take part in a one-off GBP 0.99 (EUR 1.29/USD 1.50) cod and chip promotion. The overriding aim of this event — coincided with Norway’s Constitution Day national holiday, marked annually on 17 May — was to create a connection between U.K. end-consumers and the Norwegian vessels catching their cod.
This year, to extend FAS promotions to a year-round campaign and to try to make the marketing more financially viable, the NSC has outlined its plans for a membership program, called “Union Norge,” that will bring together some of the country’s leading FAS fish-and-chip shops and assist them in becoming ambassdors for Norwegian FAS fish.
While still in the planning stages, the concept will task U.K.-based FAS fish distributors with recruiting chippies from all over the country to the program that have a track record of selling high-quality fish and chips and a history of supplying FAS fish.
Recruitment is due to begin next month and the NSC wants to confirm all the businesses taking part in March, although it is yet to settle on a final target number of participants. A website is scheduled for launch in April, after which promotional campaigns will commence based around the core message of “locked in freshness.”
Union Norge’s objectives for 2015 include growing sales of FAS volumes in the U.K. market in line with an increased supply, as well as making Norwegian cod a “brand that consumers can buy into” by communicating provenance, the way the fishery is managed and how the FAS fish are caught and quickly processed.
“There are still some weeks work left to finalize all the details, but it’s crucial for us that we deliver a marketing program that delivers value to the fish-and-chip shops,” said Moller.
