At the moment many salmon buyers and producers are freezing all their deliveries to be able to hopefully sell the products, when the corona virus has stopped.
One of them is Baltimer in Gdansk, Poland, who specialises in fresh fish commodities. At the moment the company is in a critical state. Paweł Piotrowski, Vice President of the Board is very concerned about the survival of the business, as no one is buying any fresh fish at the moment.
“At the moment we we are freezing everything. About five tons a day. Nobody is buying anything. We really hope the corona virus will end soon, as we are in real trouble,” says Pawel Piotrowski to SalmonBusiness.
The company is at the moment not selling anything and therefore freezing down five tons of fish a day. The majority of this is salmon.
The Vice President states that if the corona virus goes on for much longer, the company will not have any future in the industry.
Sales lowered by 30% last three weeks
The dutch processing company Thaena Surgeles is experiencing the same difficulties when it comes to selling fresh salmon.
“The last three weeks our sales of fresh salmon has lowered by 30%. We have the same problem and have to freeze down our fish to be able to sell it later on, ” says a spokesperson from Thaena Surgeles.
The company mainly processes salmon.
The spokesperson also states that the company is freezing 60% more salmon than usual. The processor usually sells both frozen and fresh salmon and is therefore counting on their frozen part of the business to burst the company in the lockdown corona virus period.
Another way of cutting costs
Limito in Poland is one of the leading processors of Norwegian salmon and to manage their business right now, they are ordering less salmon, as the demand on salmon is low in Europe. The company has chosen not to freeze their salmon, as they don’t know when it will be possible to sell the product.
“We should not panic. Wholesale is dead at the moment, but we are selling small portions of salmon to supermarkets,” says Ewa Rutynowska, Export manager at Limito.
Almost everyone in the company is sent home to work. Rutynowska is not able to say the exact number of how much their sales have gone down during the last couple of weeks.
“All we are doing right now is trying to manage, and hope the virus will soon stop.”
