Ireland’s marketing proposition at ESE

Innovation, quality and building on Ireland’s provenance will be the main messages being highlighted at this year’s ESE. Miriam Atkins of Irishfood Seafood talks to BIM’s new Market and Business Development Manager, Donal Buckley, about the importance of getting the right message across at the Irish pavilion.

In 2007, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) developed an innovative approach to showcase the best of Irish seafood at ESE Brussels. The Irish pavilion was redesigned to offer visitors a seafood market area where exhibitor products were professionally merchandised. Feedback from the show was very positive, so this year BIM is once again investing in a new and improved pavilion to showcase Irish seafood at ESE this April.

Donal Buckley, Business Development Manager at BIM explains the importance of ESE: “The European Seafood Exposition is the world event to be at for seafood companies. BIM’s market area positions Irish seafood companies among the best in the world. It offers companies a platform to showcase their product to international buyers. We spend a lot of resources on this year-on-year, so we have to examine the value it offers. This year we are expanding the size of the Irish pavilion by 30 per cent to span 614 mt2, which will give companies more space to promote themselves through individual product displays and sampling by professional chefs. The market will also include a professional merchandising area and a large hospitality section with a dedicated business centre.”

Donal notes that the intention this year is to have a tougher and more focused business agenda at the event. With this in mind, BIM has also developed a mentoring programme for companies exhibiting at the show with food business consultant James Burke of James Burke Associates. The programme involves one-on-one mentoring before the show to help businesses analyse their overall strategy; examine the level of innovation being undertaken; and identify the markets that they wish to target. “This mentoring programme enables companies to establish their objectives at the show. It’s all about growing sales as well as developing business relationships,” says Donal.

The message
Donal points out that there are certain key messages that BIM wants to highlight at ESE in relation to the Irish seafood companies exhibiting. These messages are aligned with Donal’s own goals as the Board’s new Market and Business Development Manager. So what are his goals for the industry?

“We have three main marketing objectives, as per the Cawley Report. One is market development, through building on our insights and market intelligence. I refer to it as a category approach to the market; looking at the three categories we operate in – bulk pelagic, fresh live and prepared seafood – and then looking at the core European markets we deal with: Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK, as well as Asia and Africa for bulk pelagic. The next key issue is innovation. Irish seafood producers are becoming increasingly innovative and market focused. Going forward, innovation will underpin everything. When you haven’t huge branding resources you need to be leading edge. Profitable growth will come from offering a lot faster and more commercialised innovation in new product, packaging and marketing of seafood.

“Our stated aim is to add €100 million in growth over the next five years and this will primarily be driven by innovation. And then there is quality. Quality is the base platform for any marketing activity. You can’t market a product without it being underpinned by quality. We have work to do to make our quality standards more cohesive. We are lucky in that Ireland has a very positive environmental image and good food image. Through continuously improving our seafood quality we can differentiate and capitalise on this image.” This differentiation is crucial in order to compete on a world stage, says Donal. He explains the points of differentiation that Irish companies already offer customers: “Our environment offers differentiation. As an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean we have a very clean and positive green profile. We need to leverage this in the seafood sector, as has been done in other sectors of the food industry. Secondly, we are building on our identity as a personality-driven trade partner, which is easy to do business with. This is a very personality-driven industry as opposed to a big, anonymous multinational industry and Ireland can offer this personal touch, [with links directly to the fishermen].”

BIM’s offer
Donal states that he foresees closer partnerships between BIM and seafood companies in the coming years, where the Board will seek to continually provide commercially relevant services. “We aim to be an informed business partner for the industry, offering full insights to market and up-to-date data and research. This is very different to solely becoming a funding organisation: it is a more integrative approach to business planning. We work together to bring skills and relevant competencies, as well as some joined-up funding partnerships. We are looking to achieve a rationalised, strong industry.”

A key starting point for the development of the industry is the fact that seafood is viewed as a ‘super food’, Donal continues. “We have a buoyant demand. In Ireland alone there was a growth of 18 per cent in seafood sales last year. The challenge now is for the industry to step up and get our value chain together from the supplier to the processor right through to the distributor and the consumer.” Donal adds that BIM are recruiting younger consumers to seafood through the BIM ‘Fishing for Compliments’ campaign which emphasises health and wellbeing.
With innovation top of the agenda at BIM, Donal explains that BIM is seeking resources to improve innovation capability in new product and packaging development for the seafood sector. A new marketing office in the UK, the industry’s second largest market with nearly 20 per cent of exports, is also an important step forward. Here, Donal says, the focus will be on the foodservice and catering market as well as on premium brand in retail. The Italian market is another area of interest for the Board and BIM is currently investigating opportunities here to open up the market.

Challenges
In conclusion, Donal points to the challenges ahead with a positive and proactive attitude: “There are many challenges for the industry. The main challenge is the supply chain. Our supply chain is too complex and needs to be made more efficient to meet market requirements reliably. We also need to address the needs of the hard-pressed pelagic sector in terms of finding new markets and new product ideas. The key emphasis, overall, however, is investing in commercially relevant innovation to drive growth. BIM needs to provide services which will enable the industry to sustainably grow and be profitable.”

Donal Buckley, BIM Market and Business Development Manager, has over 25 years experience in the food industry as a food technologist. Before coming to BIM he worked for 20 years at Tetra Pak, one of the world’s leaders in food processing and packaging. Here he held commercial marketing positions in Northern Europe, Russia and Ireland. Previously, he worked for the Irish Dairy Board in factory management positions in such far-flung destinations as Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Middle East.

Article reprinted with kind permission of IFP Media.