Estonia

Japs is among Estonia’s leading companies in the fish processing sector in terms of the quantities of raw material processed and the number of employees. The company is vertically integrated with its own fishing vessels, processing facilities, as well as marketing, sales and distribution.

The Estonian Trawling Association (ETA) is one of Estonia’s three producer organisations. Its factory, which processes sprat and Baltic herring, went on stream at the end of August 2010. Now, the organisation is looking to increase its capacity, enlarge its use of automation, and extend a quay that will improve the offloading of catches.

DGM Shipping is a successful processor of Baltic herring and sprat. Three years ago the company was nominated for the Prix d’Elite at the European Seafood Exposition in Brussels for one of its products. This year the company has just returned from Prodexpo in Moscow with a Gran-Prix for a similar creation.

Avektra is a 15-year-old Estonian company specialised in processing Norwegian salmon and trout, which is frozen, smoked and marinated for sale on markets in Western Europe.

Since last year Olavi Petron has had to deal with a series of critical issues in the fisheries sector with international repercussions. In January 2014 Russian veterinary authorities found that some Estonian fish processing factories did not comply with their standards and rescinded the plants’ export permits. In August sanctions imposed by the west on Russia sparked a ban on imports of certain fisheries products to Russia from the EU, which also affected Estonian processors. The ban is still in place and the Estonian authorities are using different strategies to assist the sector.

The Estonian Rural Development Foundation was established in 1993 with funds from various donors that became available when the country became independent. Today, the foundation is using these funds to implement programmes that support the economic development of rural Estonia.

The Hunt-Fish group has a track record selling perch fillets to buyers in the Swiss retail sector. At the end of last year the company together with perch fishermen invested in a processing facility to produce fresh perch fillets thereby removing two links in the value chain.