NORTHCOAST SEAFOODS SNAPPED UP BY AMBITIOUS DUTCH FIRM KEEN TO ENTER UK MARKET

Northcoast Seafoods, a major supplier of prawns and whitefish in the UK, has been bought by the Dutch subsidiary of a Japanese seafood company.

The purchaser is Seafood Connection, a frozen seafood supplier based in Urk in the Netherlands that trades more than 70,000 tonnes of frozen fish products each year.

The purchase should, Seafood Connection has said, mean that it has secured a long-hoped-for foothold in the UK market.

Seafood Connection has, since 2013, been owned by Maruha Nichiro, a Japanese firm that is described as one of the world’s largest seafood companies.

Northcoast Seafoods, which is based in Grimsby in north-east England and employs more than 100 staff, was founded in 2000 and sources its products globally, in particular from Canada, Iceland and Asia.

In a statement, Jan Kaptijn, Seafood Connection’s CEO, said the takeoever “doesn’t mean that we’re going to change the company”.

“I am glad to finally have a great partner to make the jump across the North Sea and be more active in the UK market,” he said.

Northcoast Seafoods’ managing director, Fridrik Mar Thorsteinsson, will step down from his current role, but will remain with the company as an advisor and procurement director. He will be replaced as managing director by Adrian Crookes, Northcoast Seafoods’ finance director.

Northcoast Seafoods had been part of Kangamiut Seafood, a Danish seafood supplier. The sum paid by Maruha Nichiro for Northcoast Seafoods has not been made public.

In other seafood-related acquisition news, in July last year SIAL Paris Newsroom reported that Grieg Seafood had sold its Scottish salmon farms, a processing plant and other facilities to Scottish Sea Farms.

Join us at SIAL Paris as exhibitor Join us at SIAL Paris as visitor