Meeting Specifications
These days, nearly all commercial food products are grown, harvested, cut and packaged in accordance with specifications.
Governments specify the minimum requirements that must be met to ensure consumer health and safety. Food retailers, restaurant operators and other food service organizations specify additional requirements to ensure their products will be attractive to consumers, meet targeted price points and fit into their production and distribution systems. Both sets of specifications ...
The Changing Face of Seafood Distribution
Like so many other businesses, the core business of major U.S. seafood distributors has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We all know how restaurants, hotels and casinos and amusement parks shut down. And food service seafood sales have fallen anywhere from 30 to 98 per cent, depending on the type of venue and offering.
I have been wrestling with what this might mean for our industry. The only certainty I have is that we won’t go back to the way things were before.
The restaur...
Predictability
Predictability is the degree to which a prediction, forecast or expectation is likely to come true.
It is the foundation on which all plans are made. Unless there is a reasonable expectation of predictability, a plan has little chance of becoming reality.
About 30 years ago, the U.S Army War College developed the idea that we increasingly live in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous — or VUCA, for short. According to that view, we hope for certainty in a world that ...
Welcome to the New Normal
“People often ask when the world will return to its normal days. Don’t wait for normal days. Assume that abnormal days are normal days. Today’s abnormal normal is now our new normal.”
Mehmet Murat Ildan (Turkish playwright and author)
Last month’s Navigator Magazine was the always-popular, annual safety issue. It always highlights and puts the importance of safety in the fishery out front, where it should always be.
As every harvester knows, fishing is a dangerous ...
Work Together or Hang Separately, it is That Simple
Above: Lonnie Snow photo
Two qualities that give the seafood industry its unique character are being made up of a multitude of diverse companies of all sizes and having an immense diversity of species and products.
In the U.S. meat industry, four companies control 84 per cent of beef production, 65 per cent of pork production, 53 per cent of poultry and one dairy co-op and one processor control 30 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the national milk supply.
Our compan...
Matching Demand and Supply
Recent events related to the COVID-19 lockdown have brought into very clear focus the economic laws of supply and demand that usually operate more in the background.
Essentially, these laws state that, in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular item will vary, until the quantity demanded is equal to the quantity supplied.
If market demand is higher than supply, the price will rise, to attract new supply. But if supply exceeds demand, the price will drop, until some suppliers ...
Industry Uncertainty Cannot Overshadow Safety
Like most industries around the globe, COVID-19 has many seafood harvesting and processing businesses reeling right now.
At this time of the year, Southwest Nova lobster fishermen are normally putting a big push on to finish their season strong, while in other parts of Atlantic Canada, the snow crab fishery is about to ramp up into high gear, not to mention other Maritime lobster seasons.
Economically speaking, spring is the critical season for many fishing enterprises.
However, the ...
Processors Now Key to Lobster and Crab Survival in Canada
Above: Kathy Johnson photo
This month, economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic will become more visible and the success or failure of economic decisions will have a big impact on our lives, as much as the success or failure of pandemic containment actions.
The big money fisheries in Atlantic Canada are lobster and snow crab and how these fisheries navigate the next few months will be critical to the survival of many shore communities and small businesses.
We need to prepare ...
Risk = Probability x Impact
Safety is the theme for this month’s issue of The Navigator.
But safety is a concern because of risk. The fishery is widely regarded as being the riskiest occupation in the world.
The risks have even been the subject of reality television shows, such as Deadliest Catch, about the crab fishery in Alaska. When the risks in your industry are offered to the public as a form of entertainment, to provide a vicarious thrill, it is not a good sign.
Risk can be assessed based on the simple ...
Valuing Fish
Last month, I wrote a column about valuing the ocean.
This month, I will follow up with a column about valuing fish, just one of the resources the ocean provides but a very important one, both globally and here in Atlantic Canada.
In 2011, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris published an award-winning book entitled The Price of Fish: A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions. It is worth noting that the authors were involved in creation of the Marine Stewardship Council, which ...
