Ex-Marine Harvest buyer is starting new marketplace for salmon.
JET Seafood is out to serve up disruptive conceptions to buyers and sellers in the salmon market.
Eirik Talhaug spent several years as an analyst and later as a salmon buyer at Marine Harvest’s head office in Bergen. He saw with his own eyes the ineffective way in which farmed salmon was being traded.
Now he’s determined to change all that.
Talhaug has established the company Jet Seafood, together with his former boss Dag Seter, from the time they worked together at the power trader Bergen Energi. In the course of 2018, they will roll out the Seafood Portal, a digital portal dedicated to the purchase and sale of seafood for the Norwegian and international markets.
Liquidity
The market solution will ensure enhanced liquidity, reduce transaction costs and provide superior information flow and transparency for players trading in seafood.
“We’re looking further afield – to Europe, the United States and Asia,” Talhaug told Salmon Business.
The plan is to operate solely on the spot market, as a marketplace for salmon. The brand new company has acquired office space in the fishing and aquaculture quarter of Marineholmen in Bergen.
The way the trading platform works is that one buys and sells physical seafood from various market players; producers, exporters, processors, wholesalers and so on. No forward curves or derivatives – just purely buying and selling on the physical spot market.
Scalable
“We’re starting off with salmon, which we know best, but may also look at cod, shrimp, tilapia, and pangasius. It’s scalable to say the very least,” said Talhaug.
The portal will be an effective solution for buyers and sellers of salmon, providing information on price, weight and quality. This will enable buyers and sellers to gain a more comprehensive overview of the market, including highlighting additional services essential to accomplishing the transaction(s).
Also on board as co-owner and with responsibility for development is the IT firm Miles.
Disruptive
The concept of streamlining and industrialising salmon trading is not a new one. Salmon traders have the past two decades been mulling over how to replace phones and e-mails with an effective stock exchange-styled solution.
“Why is it that you in particular should succeed?”
“That’s a good question. Our solution is future-oriented. Disruptive. It provides a better and more effective way to trade. It makes the job more cost effective, and you know you are reaching a far wider audience base,” said Jet Seafood Chairman, Dag Seter, adding:
“Even while you’re sleeping, somebody in China may be checking the prices and bidding on your fish”.
Adrenalin kick
They have received excellent feedback on the business concept. Recently Jet Seafood won the entrepreneurial contest “Angel Challenge Bergen”.
“Talk about an adrenalin kick to be called up on to the stage as winners in front of an audience of 450 at Ole Bull Scene, said Talhaug.
The prize was what entrepreneurial companies needed most: Liquidity. A convertible loan of EUR 90,000.
