Private venture eyeing minimum 10-year lease of Fish Marketing Corporation

Lucian Blue Ocean Seafoods Inc, the recently formed private company that assumed operations of the Fish Marketing Corporation (FMC) in April, has been operating the entity without a final lease agreement. This week, the company’s managing director, Mr. Hilary Herman, said negotiations have been bouncing back and forth but he is hopeful matters will be finalised shortly. 

He says that the company is hoping for a minimum of ten years “but whether that is agreed upon is based on government”. Why ten years? Herman said this period would be sufficient time to regain the invested capital of “a little over $700,000”. Operating without a final agreement was not smooth sailing and, on May 29, the Castries, Choiseul and Goodwill Fishermen’s Cooperatives held a joint press conference to air their grievances over the status of the FMC. Among their many concerns: fish was no longer being purchased from fishermen, prices were not regulated, and they had little knowledge of the new entity.

Managing Director Herman explained that after buying in excess of 20,000 pounds of fish, the company needed to stop purchasing. He said that was due to the fact that although they’re currently selling fish to the general public, they have not been able to do the same with any of their preferred customers—hotels, supermarkets and schools that require bulk—because the business has not been certified.

“Environmental Health came in and gave us an extensive list of things we need to either install, change or modify before we can actually get a certificate to operate,” Herman said. “We’re currently working on those. It’s simple things like hand-washing sinks and screens on the windows. We’ve met most of the requirements. That forced us to slow down the purchasing because we didn’t want to buy a whole bunch of fish and have it sitting in the refrigerator and getting freezer burn. So, as soon as we get that administrative hurdle taken care of, we’ll start buying fish again.”

Herman said he expects everything to be in place by next week so that they can receive the certification. On the issue of prices paid to fishermen, he says the business is market-driven, and prices will always be based on the market price. “We cannot have a fixed price and say, for example, we’ll buy dorado dolphin at $8 a pound, when there’s a flood of dolphin where it’s going for $6 and $5 a pound. If that’s what the government was doing, only governments can do that. As a private business we just can’t do that; we have to go based on the market.”

Regarding uncertainty surrounding the new entity, Herman said he believes the respective cooperatives had issues in not being able to meet with the principal of the company, Ms. Karen Peter, but  “she’s not directly involved in the business” so Herman doesn’t know what she can tell them that he can’t. Nevertheless, he says Ms. Peter intends to meet with them “in the near future”. Herman says there shouldn’t be an “adversarial relationship” and their intent is to help the fishermen.

He highlighted that the company can’t operate without the fishermen and the business hopes that the cooperatives can get their membership on board to better the quality of fish they bring in. Taking ice with them at sea, and not allowing the fish to sit in their boats exposed to the sun, are some of the practices he says need to be followed. He added that after the domestic market is operating smoothly, they intend to focus on entering the export market.