With former Regal Springs and Grobest executive Kristin Veriga at its helm, Seafoodportal.com had designs on becoming the world’s premier online trading marketplace.
Veriga, who formerly served as the chief marketing officer at Taiwan-based aquafeed and aquaculture equipment firm Grobest, and previously worked as executive vice president of sales, marketing, research, development, and insights at tilapia farmer Regal Springs and as general manager of Iglo Group, was hired in March 2022 to grow Seafoodportal.com into the industry’s go-to seafood-trading platform.
“There’s obviously a need for an online seafood-trading platform, but our goal is to make the best one – to take that standard idea and make it better, and then to add complementary things that make it a much more useful tool for the industry as a whole,” Veriga told SeafoodSource at the 2022 Seafood Expo Global in April in Barcelona, Spain. “It’s about how can we make a difference for the industry.”
Seafoodportal.com began as a fresh salmon trading platform in the European Union, but expanded to facilitate the trading of most major seafood species and in all formats, including fresh, frozen, fillets, and byproducts. Seafoodportal.com allowed its users to check prices and species availability and test the market for price and cost data.
Seafoodportal.com had significant heft behind it. Even though Stavanger, Norway-based Link Venture Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investments in the marine economy, was a primary backer, and former Regal Springs CEO Achim Eichenlaub had served as Seafoodportal.com owner Jet Seafood’s board chairman. Its board members included Link Capital Co-Founder and Investment Director Elisabeth Øvstebø, Royal Greenland U.S. CEO Soren Dalsager, digital venture specialist and Metaflight CEO Simon Torrance, and Nordic Wildfish Sales Manager and former Mowi sales manager Dag Espen Hauge.
But Seafoodportal.com struggled in the crowded online seafood marketplace, which features numerous players vying for supremacy both globally and in niche markets, and new entrants seemingly coming on the scene every month.
While the website is still live, Veriga confirmed it has been mothballed and its assets sold, with Jet Seafood entering bankruptcy proceedings on 4 November.
“I’m not really able to discuss much to be honest so I won’t be in a position is talk through what happened in the record,” Veriga told SeafoodSource in an email. “I am no longer at Seafoodportal. I resigned effective immediately at the conclusion of the sale.”
Veriga said he has started in a new position as senior vice president of global shrimp at eFishery. The company, based in Bandung, Indonesia, was launched in 2013 and offers fish and shrimp farmers an end-to-end platform with access to feed, financing, and markets. Currently, eFishery serves 24 provinces in Indonesia.
“I will be leading the development of their global shrimp value chain and will be on the global leadership team,” he said. “Exciting times at a very exciting company.”
Photo courtesy of Cliff White/SeafoodSource
