One billion Euro opportunity for Irish seafood sector
Siri Elise Dybdal
Kicking off the conference, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney said Ireland’s ambition is to have become a global player in the seafood industry by 2020, following expansion into new markets and engagement in a range of new value adding activities.
Outlining the scale of the opportunity for the industry the Minister said: “The Irish seafood sector is currently worth €822 million to the economy, employs approximately 11,000 people and is showing phenomenal growth on the export market with sales up 18 per cent on 2011 to €493 million in 2012.”
Although there is declining demand and prices in traditional markets such as the UK, Germany, Spain, and France due to the economic downturn, opportunity is knocking in emerging markets such as China. Food futurist Christophe Pelletier pointed out that even a very small share of the Chinese market would offer a significant boost to the Irish industry. “If every Chinese person was to eat 100 grams of Irish seafood just once a year that would equal 150,000 tons a year,” he noted.
And in the coming years, seafood consumption per capita per year in China is expected to rise from 26 kg today to 36 kg in 2020. Just a 1 per cent share of that market would be greater than 500,000 tons a year.”
But Irish firms should not write off traditional markets in the search for opportunities in Asia and elsewhere, he cautioned. “You must keep and protect traditional markets, optimise your customer base, and work with customers on innovating new products.”
Gorjan Nikolik, Food and Agribusiness Researcher with Rabobank International said Ireland has significant unused potential. “With major production resources available, there is an opportunity to become a global player in the aquaculture industry. Economies of scale can be achieved very quickly in this business, even without a large domestic market in place.”
He says funding for the industry is also available from outside of Ireland, with venture capital attracted to innovative sectors outside of the high tech industry since the dotcom collapse of a number of years ago. Other potential investors include the aquaculture sector and the meat industry. “I think that as aquaculture grows and matures it will become more and more similar to the farming of poultry and pork and this will motivate investments from the large meat companies. We can foresee that the investment potential arising from Chinese companies looking to secure supply for their domestic markets is another major opportunity. Seafood will be in demand long after meat demand is satisfied in China.”
