Seafood processors and traders in the United Kingdom have launched a new trade organization to advocate for the industry across a broad array of key issues.
The recently launched UK Seafood Federation (UKSF) amalgamates the Provision of Trade Federation’s Seafood Industry Alliance (SIA) and Seafood Grimsby & Humber Alliance (SGHA) into a central hub to advocate for seafood processors and traders.
The new group, which will soon become a member of The European Fish Processors Association (AIPCE), is advocating for the industry on issues like trade barriers, carbon measurement, and skills development – while also providing a stronger voice to influence policy and consumer perception to safeguard the industry’s future and ensure its contribution to both the U.K. economy and food security is fully recognized.
With the stated mission “to be the voice of the U.K. industry in making seafood a bigger part of the British diet for a healthier nation and planet,” the pre-competitive collaboration said it wants to bring large and small seafood processing and trading businesses closer together and focus on finding solutions to common industry challenges. As well as delivering on UKSF’s mission, the intention is that its members will look to shape the future of the industry, and advocate for fair policies.
For the last four years or so, SIA and SGHA had worked in parallel – with the former especially focused on trade in the wake of Brexit and SGHA supporting the Grimsby and Humber cluster that represents between 60 percent and 70 percent of the U.K. seafood supply.
UKSF Chair Simon Smith, who is also vice-chair of Sofina Foods (Europe) and former chair of SGHA, told SeafoodSource that this coming together removes the workstream overlaps that had existed between SIA and SGHA, with UKSF providing a more operationally effective and cost-efficient platform to progress the industry.
It also removes any potential confusion in government circles and associated departments that may arise from having two separate voices, he said.
“It helps everybody if government ministers and Defra [the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs] know they’re speaking to somebody that’s representing the entire industry, rather than having to go to a number of different sources,” Smith said.
Leading to this point, there was also the further realization that while SGHA had started out life as a Grimsby and Humber focused organization, almost everything it was working on was of importance on a national scale, and that a number of businesses that were in the association had national footprints.
“With the business I’m involved with – Sofina and Young’s – we have almost as many processing plants in Scotland as we have in Grimsby and Humber. It’s the same for other organizations too. The issues we are discussing with government are national issues, not Grimsby issues,” Smith said.
Smith said the process to form the new organization got rolling just over a year ago as the once-separate organizations continued to build relationships across the wider U.K.
“About 18 months ago, we had a sort of lightbulb moment when we realized that we were stronger together. It just made sense that we ought to be doing this work on behalf of the entire seafood industry,” Smith said. “We’d also been developing relationships with the Scottish and Southwest clusters in recent years, so it just seemed like the right time. Since then, we’ve worked to put all the mechanics in place to make that happen, and to make it a smooth transition whereby we’re now at the point that everything has formally changed, with regards to the merger of SIA and SGHA under the new leadership of the UK Seafood Federation.”