With its overall business in flux following the recent announcement that its parent entity, the Icelandic Group, will be reorganized, Icelandic Seachill is seeing success with its leading brand, The Saucy Fish Co.
The Icelandic Group, managed by the Iceland Enterprise Investment Fund, also owns Icelandic Iberica in Spain, Icelandic Gadus in Belgium and Icelandic Ny-Fiskur in Iceland in addition to Seachill in the United Kingdom. However, last year, the fund announced its intentions to divest itself from all of its business by 2019. In response, the Icelandic Group’s management announced in May 2016 that the conglomerate would seek to “retain only vital services” and initiated the sale of Icelandic Iberica, after it had already sold Icelandic Asia in December 2015.
Yet even as the Icelandic Enterprise Investment Fund sells off the Icelandic Group business, brands under the Icelandic umbrella continue to expand. Seachill’s leading brand, The Saucy Fish, is expanding to Austria, on the heels of an expansion in the U.S. market.
Icelandic Group CEO Simon Smith told SeafoodSource the mother company’s reorganization had not been a distraction as Seachill and the group’s other subsidiaries sought to enact their individual business plans.
“There is no defined timeline or pressure to sell at any given moment, and the management of the business is confident about delivery of its various projects and business plans,” Smith said.
Pushing on despite the reorganization efforts within the Icelandic Group, Saucy Fish has targeted Austria as a lucrative new market. In line with its innovative approach to marketing, the brand opened a “British pop-up shop” for the summer in Vienna, Austria’s popular Millennium Shopping Arcade. The shop is designed to bring British lifestyle, fashion and food brands in front of an Austrian audience, according to Saucy Fish.
“This innovative British pop-up provides a great opportunity to increase brand exposure amongst buyers from Austria’s major retail chains,” said Paul Macis, international and business development manager for The Saucy Fish Co. “The pop-up also enables us to trial a range of products at different price points to consumers, in what could be an exciting market for Saucy Fish.”
The Austrian pop-up shop is just the latest move in the brand’s international expansion. Last year, Saucy Fish also hosted an award-winning pop-up event in London, designed to showcase the ease of cooking fish. Saucy’s School of Fish stunt saw children take over a restaurant during a busy lunchtime sitting. They prepared, cooked and served Saucy Fish dishes to more than 150 diners, demonstrating that “cooking fish is child’s play.”
In March, the company expanded its packaged fish and sauce products in the United States, placing them in more than 800 Publix Super Markets stores in the Southeast.
“With a focus on international expansion throughout the year, we expect to see sales figures double in 2016,” Macis said in March.
Recent news hasn’t all been positive for the Icelandic Group. In June, Icelandic Seachill lost its coated fish, prawn cocktail and encroute contracts from Marks & Spencer. That resulted in Seachill deciding to close one of its three plants in Grimsby, England and the elimination of up to 200 jobs at the plant, according to just-food.
"Our number one priority is to support those directly impacted by the decision that M&S have taken," the company told just-food said in a statement. "The Icelandic Seachill business remains in good shape with strong and continuing partnerships with our remaining customers."
Still, while executives work out details of the reorganization, both Icelandic Group and Icelandic Seachill appear to be on steady ground financially. The company hasn’t yet released any 2016 results, but Icelandic Group reported revenue from continuing operations of EUR 536.4 million (USD ) in 2015 compared to EUR 493.9 million (USD ) in 2014, an increase of 9 percent, according to its annual report. The group reported a profit of EUR 7.9 million (USD ) in 2015, compared to a loss of EUR 5.4 million (USD ) in 2014.
“It's been easy to stay focused. When we put in place the new management team in 2014 we at the same time established a straightforward and focused strategy and remained consistent on this," ” Smith said of the company's performance. "This has meant that whatever the circumstances, we have had clear focus and contingencies to deal with the unexpected. The importance of a good plan and a strong team cannot be underestimated and having both of these has ensured that we have not been distracted from our goals.”
