Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 11 July 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Bord Iascaigh Mhara Annual Report 2011: Discussion

1:20 pm

Mr. Jason Whooley:

I thank the Chairman and the committee members for their contributions and questions. I will deal with the broader questions and the expert team to my left will answer questions according to subject. Senator Ó Domhnaill asked whether our development strategy was industry-led or top-down. It is a mixture of both. It is a traditional sector with a considerable range of expertise in various areas, and it is very important for an organisation such as ours to be out and about listening to people, hearing what they have to say, addressing their concerns and planning a way forward with the industry. With this comes an obligation or onus on an organisation such as BIM, as a development agency with resources at our disposal, to lead the industry forward and provide leadership. We take this role very seriously. We investigate and scan the wider environment from a business perspective and, on the basis of the trends we see internationally and monitoring what the competition is doing, we plan with the industry and for the industry. I would like to think this challenges both parties, with us being pulled by the industry in a certain direction and equally us trying to take the industry in a certain direction.

Senator O'Keeffe asked about niche versus commodity. Marketing language tends to get thrown around and it can be a bit glib from time to time. Where we see niche versus commodity is down almost at species level. We have a very successful scaled pelagic sector with herring, mackerel and such species being exported quite successfully to markets such as Egypt, Nigeria and Russia. The costs are good, and in a commodity business when the costs are right and of significant scale a margin can be made and this is where we are trying to focus. When we speak about niche it is with regard to the more traditional shellfish and whitefish species. In 2011 the whitefish market in Europe amounted to 15 million tonnes, worth €55 billion. Of this €55 billion, 62% was imported from outside Europe. A total of 89% of whitefish consumed in Europe was imported from outside. Species such as pangasius, tilapia and Nile perch are commodity species from low-cost countries which go to a market which, based on the figures, account for approximately 67% of our sales. If we try to compete with these species, as we are doing at present, in the longer term we will lose because their costs are far lower than ours. The differentiation we are speaking about is with regard to these species. We must market species such as haddock, whiting and cod at a higher level or through different channels than where the other species are headed because it would be a race to the bottom if we tried to compete. I hope this in some way explains the specifics.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.