Lenta, one of Russia’s biggest retail chains, has signed a direct-supply agreement with the FOR Group.
The agreement was signed during the II International Fishery Forum held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which took place from 13 to 15 September.
Lenta operates 317 hypermarkets and supermarkets in 84 cities in Russia, with total floorspace of around 1.5 million square meters. The retailer sells both food and non-food products. Lenta Chief Category Manager Sergey Ermolaev said his company is interested in eliminating intermediaries from the supply chain in order to reduce prices and grow the market for Russian seafood in the domestic market.
“Direct supplies from a fishery enable us to provide the best quality and prices for our consumers,” he said. “The partnership with the FOR group will help us develop the presence of Russian fish at our shops.”
The FOR Group operates a fleet of 14 vessels in Russia’s Western and Northern fishery basins of Russia, as well as on the high seas. Of its approximate annual catch of 170,000 metric tons, it sells around 60 percent inside Russia and exports the remaining 40 percent going to markets in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Under the terms of the agreement, the Kaliningrad-based FOR Group will sell herring, cod, capelin, mackerel, and grouper directly to Lenta.
Lenta Communications Manager Irina Filippova told SeafoodSource FOR’s seafood will be supplied across Lenta’s network of shops. The FOR Group is the fourth Russian fishing and aquaculture farm to begin supplying the retailer directly, with a few providing exclusive product lines to Lenta, according to Filippova.
Such agreements are still rare, Filippova said, as many fishing firms don’t yet have their own logistics capacities. In addition, the enormous distance between Russia’s Far East, where most of Russia’s seafood is caught, and the country’s most populated areas makes the logistics of transportation and distribution of seafood costly and difficult.
But facing the decline in fish consumption in Russia in recent years due to high prices, Russia’s fishing companies are starting to turn their attention toward better servicing the domestic market, Filippova said.
Pyotr Savchuk, deputy head of the Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries, who attended the signing ceremony, called for other seafood firms and retailers in the country to follow suit.
