SHETLAND CATCH AT FISCH ’98
By John Angus
MICHELLE Simpson, Otto Badzong and myself travelled to the historic city of Bremen along with John Simpson from the Shetland Fish Processors’ Association at the beginning of June to exhibit at Fisch ’98.
Shetland Catch Ltd was the only company from Shetland to attend this bi-annual show. This is understandable because the show mainly concentrates on pelagic species such as herring and mackerel.
One of the main purposes for us attending the show was to promote our new range of marinated herring. This diversification was prompted by the low price for frozen herring in Germany.
The show started on Friday 5 June and continued until Monday 8 June. We arrived on Wednesday just in time for last orders at the hotel bar. John Simpson has imposed a new fitness regime since taking over from Jeemie Burgess at SFPA so it was only two beers and up to bed before 1am.
The stand wasn’t constructed by Thursday morning so we headed into town to let Michelle solve her "I’ve nothing to wear" worries.
We headed to the Exhibition Centre in the afternoon to prepare our display for the next day. This mainly involved putting up posters and setting out brochures. The centrepiece was a nine foot by six foot poster of various marinated herring products on a silver dish set up by Ann-Marie Charleston of the North Atlantic Fisheries College and photographed by Malcolm Younger at Burra Beach.
I remember the photo well because I turned up at the beach with my "Caterpillar" shoes only to discover Malcolm wanted the dish to be set out in the surf to make an interesting background. Malcolm, being rather cleverer than I gave him credit for, had borrowed a pair of rubber boots from Ann-Marie and told me I was needed to stand by and rescue the plate in case a big wave came. "Tak dee shun aff, hit’ll nivver hurt dee," were his exact words. So being a "company man" I had no choice. After successfully completing the photo I turned around to collect my shoes only to find them floating away towards the Burra Haaf!!
After two to three hours hard work it was back to the hotel to continue John Simpson’s fitness programme in the health suite. We rounded off the day with a walk into the old part of town and a meal at a traditional German restaurant.
Friday was the first day of the show so we were there early to set out our frozen display. This is becoming rather "old hat" and we are thinking of new ideas to brighten up our display. This year we had the SFPA German language video playing and we are in the process of making our own factory video.
The majority of our visitors were from Poland and the Baltic States and Russia. We have started to develop our own brand in these markets with our whole mackerel and hope to increase sales next season. Our "Viking" cartons are becoming well recognised and apparently Ronnie Gair is a celebrity on the Moscow markets!!
Many of the German processors had their own stands so Otto went around them to promote our marinated herring.
Saturday night was Gala Night. This is where you get the chance to wine and dine your customers. We invited three Norwegians, Jon-Erik Steenslid from Emy Fish, a pelagic processor in Måløy, Jorgen Karoliussen from Fishman, a trading company based in Sweden and Toril Bentsen from Nordic Group, a fish company in Ålesund. There was a beautiful hot and cold buffet followed by live music and dancing. I’m afraid we threw John’s diet out the window for this night.
Sunday and Monday continued in much the same way. Most of the enquiries were from Eastern European countries looking for herring and mackerel and also from Dutch processors looking for maatje herring.
We all left Bremen on Tuesday morning but not before John Simpson and Michelle got "unofficially" married at the airport. Michelle’s passport was still in her maiden name so she had a copy of her marriage certificate with her. The booking clerk, looking at the certificate and their tickets assumed they’d just been hitched. She congratulated them and asked about the honeymoon. I don’t know who was more embarrassed between John and Michelle. We wish the "happy couple" all the best!!
This show certainly wasn’t as busy as Brussels but we did meet some very useful contacts. Eastern Europe is a growing market where the Norwegians have successfully promoted their products. We are catching up but it takes time to find financially strong companies to deal with.
It was vital to attend Fisch ’98 to promote our proposed marinated herring production. This has been developed in secret and now was the time to unveil our plan to the German processors.
Many of the Scottish processors complained that Brussels and Bremen are too close together and I must agree with them. Brussels has dramatically increased in size to the detriment of Bremen. Most companies said they would try Bremen again in two years’ time and then decide whether to keep coming.
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