Expansion opportunities following the buy-out by Sealaska Corporation are being realised by New England Seafood International, with timely investments safeguarding supplies.
The £3.3 million purchase of a neighbouring site to its Grimsby whitefish operations has been flagged as part of the future growth ambition, with the acquisitions of two Icelandic businesses ensuring short-term headwinds from the Russian invasion of Ukraine don’t alter the course for the firm.
It has reported sales of £151.5 million in 2021, broadly in line with the elongated 14-month period prior, as accounts were tallied with the new ownership.
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This year has seen Southern Peninsular operations IceMar, launched in 2003, and AGS - launched five years later - added, with deals completing earlier this year.
IceMar has contracted vessels supplying into Icelandic plants, providing seafood internationally, while AGS is one of the country’s leading haddock processors.
In his strategic report, chief executive Dan Aherne told how being part of a large international group had started to provide the expected opportunities, with “substantive progress made on both NESI’s international and domestic expansion in 2021”.
On the Europarc addition, currently home to Haith’s who are moving to Louth, he said it was providing “a footprint for expansion of state-of-the-art efficient volume production as UK sales volumes grow”.
Iceland has been the immediate focus, for good reason. Mr Aherne said: “These acquisitions significantly enhance our access to, and knowledge of, primary markets for several of our species, including cod and haddock, and provide a source of competitive advantage.” Acknowledging it has never been more relevant due to the ongoing hostilities, he said the 35 per cent tariff and “negative sentiment” to catch from Russian vessels has “created significant raw material demand from alternative countries and consequently price inflation in several raw materials including cod, haddock and pollock - staple white fish products in the UK".
“Our collaborations with IceMar, AGS, and a strategic supplier in Norway are ensuring access to raw material at what we believe will be competitive market prices to continue to allow us to provide unhampered service and a consistency of quality to our customers,” Mr Aherne said. “Furthermore, they increase access to important North American and European markets”.
Sales had softened by the slightest margins from a heightened lockdown period in its first full year in new ownership, having been bought by the Sealaska Corporation in late 2020.
An Alaskan native corporation, it was established under settlement legislation in the Seventies, with shares held by more than 22,000 descendants of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes, located along the Canadian border. The Grimsby and Surrey-based firm has been designated as the foundation of the group’s global fish business.
Mr Aherne said: “We are positioned for growth in our domestic UK market and for international expansion with the support of Sealaska. While careful overhead control is very important to our business model and we work hard to make our processes more efficient wherever possible, this objective requires bold overhead choices to create the capacity in the organisation to support expansion.”
Operating profit for the year to January 2, 2022, came in at £3.1 million for the shortened period, down from £4.7 million, with margins squeezed as inflationary pressures materialised “most notably” in the second half of the year.
Results showed an increase from the £147.9 million recorded in 2019, with the drop following the sale of the foodservice business also recovered. Employee numbers stayed fairly static at 661.
NESI, founded on shellfish imports to Heathrow, had bought out Albert Darnell in Grimsby in 2016.
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