FIRST CROSS-ATLANTIC SHIPMENT OF BIVALVES TO HOLLAND.
Aqualife’s focus on creating a strategic landing point in North-Central Europe for live seafood containers is coming to fruition! The first shipment to Rotterdam recently landed Holland ex one of Maersk Lines’ transatlantic ocean carriers. The shipment carried live mussels, clams and oysters from North America; the shipment even contained live Manila clams harvested on the North American West coast.
The URK Fish Auction (located only one hour from Amsterdam) was the consignee of this first container. Being the largest fish auction in Europe with more than 45,000 M3 refrigerated warehouse under roof, and with daily truck connections to most European cities, URK Fish Auction offers an ideal location as a strategic landing point and central hub for Aqualife, centrally located between two of Europe’s largest container traffic points – Rotterdam and Bremerhaven.
This new bridge head will immediately create opportunities for the North American Oyster and Clams industries that from now can add 300 mio consumers to their “domestic market”. It will also give the Dutch industries an opportunity to consolidate its position as the centre of the European bivalve industry. URK is located only a couple of hours from Europe’s largest bivalve production and distribution centre in Yerseke.
In North America there are at least a variety of 50 different oysters – bridging the gap between the large North American recourse and the acquisitive European consumer can help to inspire market growth.
Creating a bridgehead into Holland is not only facilitating the North American and Canadian shellfish growers and industry. It will also be instrumental in the serving of several European key markets with supplies of high quality products from the fresh North-Atlantic waters – and thereby expanding the choice and varieties of popular shellfish species.
The in-flow of live shellfish to Holland – by the container load in Aqualife’s system – is supportive of building a sustainable supply-demand situation in both ends of the trade lane. Suppliers and importers alike will be able to build long-lasting relationships using frequent (weekly) shipments as a key denominator for building their business, where each 40 ft container will carry up to 14 tonnes of product subject to species.
We are hoping that the introduction of new species and greater choice will stimulate growth in the category as a whole in the European market, says Cees de Boer from the URK fish auction. It is a known fact that offering greater choice stimulates consumer interest and draws attention to the category; we will now engage in dialog with the industries and invite them to take part in this venture, concludes Cees de Boer.