Joshua Scherz is the U.S.-based general manager for Bela Seafood, a line of canned sardines, mackerel and skipjack tuna from Portugal. Bela is a fourth-generation Portuguese brand celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2017. Scherz, who based in Massachusetts, travels to Bela’s factory four or five times a year.
SeafoodSource: What is Bela’s current penetration in the United States and internationally and what are the plans to build the brand?
Scherz: Next year will be the 20th year for Bela, which is pretty significant. It’s a fourth-generation brand in Portugal and a second-generation brand in the United States. Our current focus is natural and specialty foods, where we have a 65 to 70 percent all-commodity volume. We’re just starting to move into supermarkets. Internationally, Bela is in Europe and our hope and aspiration is to bring it to other markets such as Asia and Israel. We’ve had 20 percent growth each year over the past three years.
We’re not a private-label brand packed by someone else. We are a factory and a brand; we are vertically integrated. The factory handles European sales and I handle the United States and elsewhere.
SeafoodSource: Consumers may have some pre-conceived notions about sardines and mackerel. How do you get them to go beyond their traditional lines of thinking about these products and canned seafood in general?
Scherz: The notion of sardines is that they come 30 to a can and smell awful. That’s what we have to get over. There are 22 species of sardines marketed in the United States. Ours are Portuguese pilchards (Sardina pilchardus), which is a very different kind of fish. Many of the sardines offered are Pacific sardines or from Costa Rica or are Norwegian species. Ours are very different – wild; fresh, not frozen; larger; with a different appearance.
The way we get over the misconception is we do 2,000 demos a year at store level. This has been a phenomenal way to get over the stigma of sardines. There is also a renaissance around preserved products that is going on. You see it with jerky and with jarred or canned foods. You can get quality product in canned foods.
SeafoodSource: Portugal isn't one of the major fisheries that come to mind for most Americans. What are some things people should know about the seafood industry in Portugal.
Scherz: Fishing seafood in Portugal is very similar to fishing in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Portuguese fish, from mussels to oysters to shellfish and finfish are the North Atlantic fish that people here are used to.
The thing that has changed is there used to be more than 200 canneries and now there are 20. But the production of canned fish has gone up. The same thing that happened in Maine and Monterey (to the canning industry) has happened in Portugal.
The women who work in the factories doing production are preserving the way they have been doing things for hundreds of years. The fish is still hand-produced; it’s caught within a few kilometers of the factory; the lemons and organic olive oil comes from local groves. The tuna is a little different, it comes from Portuguese territories.
SeafoodSource: What do you see as the biggest challenge still facing your company?
Scherz: Fish is migratory and as much as I think you’d like to pigeonhole fish as sustainable or not sustainable, it’s hard to say what will happen. There is a natural order and you can’t control wild fish populations. So we struggle with how do you define a sustainable fishery.
SeafoodSource: If you could change one thing about the seafood industry, what would it be?
Scherz: More information and transparency to the consumer. I think consumers go to buy canned fish but they don’t think about the cuts or the varieties. There are a lot of claims being made within the industry but the consumers don’t know what questions to ask.
We also need transparency in pricing. We shouldn’t be afraid of what price the fish is selling for. We’re one of the most expensive, but that’s still really cheap if you factor in what it takes to catch and process fish. There are countries that resort to what is [essentially] slave labor to maintain their prices.
SeafoodSource: Given the opportunity to address your peers in the seafood industry, what words of wisdom would you want to leave with them as your closing remarks?
Scherz: I would tell my peers don’t be afraid to tell the story [of your product] and charge a fair price. Price fixing and slave labor aren’t the stories you want to tell.
