Seafood Champions

Bart van Olphen - 2008 Seafood Champion

With Fishes, a fishmonger retail chain that has since expanded to include a wholesale business, owner Bart van Olphen is building a brand in the European market where all customers have access to sustainable seafood. Drawing on his experience as a cook in Paris, van Olphen uses the company to educate retail and wholesale clients about sourcing issues related to environmental stewardship. We asked van Olphen – whose favourite seafoods include wild Alaskan salmon, Patagonian scallops and Pacific halibut – to talk to us more about his company and philosophy on sustainable seafood in the Netherlands.

“When I got the idea starting a fishmonger store in 2002 I did have this romantic view on seafood,” explains van Olphen. “A view that included small boats entering beautiful ports in the South of France of Spain, having dinner at the waterfront of the real catch of the day. After a few months in business, I realized most of the fish came from big ‘sea-factories’. That moment gave me the energy to try changing the fish industry.”

Fishes was the first sustainable retail shop-chain in Europe, but is nowadays also a wholesale supplier of the largest range of products certified to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Standard. In the beginning, van Olphen acknowledges that it took a lot of time and energy to convince clients to offer more sustainable seafood. However, clients soon became more interested and now 64% of Fishes clients come to the company because of the sustainability.

“The attention paid by Stichting De Noordzee, WWF and MSC helped us to convince the people,” says van Olphen. “Now Fishes has developed a range of MSC products for supermarkets and caterers.”

In terms of a corporate purchasing policy, van Olphen says that they did make sure only to buy products from sustainable resources but that it took some effort and time. Finally the hard work paid off, resulting in a wide range of mainly MSC certified species and products. The fishermen themselves – as for example the Hastings (U.K.) fishermen – were extremely willing to help in developing a sustainable product line. American albacore tuna, recently certified to the MSC Standard, is fast becoming one of Fishes’ most popular seafood items.

“What I realize is that there are three different groups,” he explains. One: The companies really feeling sustainable seafood is important. Two: The companies who are willing to change because of commercial demand. And three: Companies who do not see any importance at all to become sustainable. Fishes clearly falls into the first category.

“In the beginning, it was Fishes who were leading customers, but I think now it is the other way around,” he says, noting that customers come to the fishshops first because of quality and then because of sustainability.

On the shop side, van Olphen ensures Fishes staff is well-trained to be able to inform customers about the products, including aspects related to sustainability. And Stichting Noordzee informs staff through intensive trainings. The company also uses in-store communication to make clients aware. On the retail side it means a lot of meetings and explanations to clients.

According to van Olphen, one of the most exciting prospects about the current seafood marketplace is that small- and middle-scale fisheries are “finally getting the rewards they deserve.” A better price for a better product, and that retail outlets are willing to underline the importance of it.

“The example that 93% of U.K. fishermen own a boat smaller than 10 meters while having only 2% of the quota needs to change rapidly!” asserts van Olphen.

Making Fishes customers aware that their actions can help save the ocean and that it’s not too late is one of the challenges he says he continues to face.

What does being a Seafood Champion mean to you?

It underlines we are operating in the right way and that people do support our effort. It makes us have a good feeling – we are doing something good for the world!

About Fishes:

The story of Fishes is an intriguing one, and perhaps best explained in the words of the company’s brochure:

Back in 2001 Bart van Olphen and another restaurateur from one of the largest restaurants in Amsterdam were invited by their fish supplier to see the auction. At five in the morning they entered a new world. Big halls of fish, bright lights and fishmongers buying by the clock.

Back in the car they started talking. They noticed in the restaurant the percentage of people ordering fish was a lot higher than people ordering meat dishes. At the same time they knew from themselves that they never make fish dishes at home.

Why is that? That was the big question of those two guys that morning. Was it the assortment in the fishshops? Is it to difficult to prepare fish in your kitchen at home?

Those questions inspired them to write a business plan and the next year opened their first fishshop. The shop was embraced by fish lovers of Amsterdam and soon more shops opened.

The knowledge of ‘where fish comes from’ started to grow as well as the concern of fish in the future. It was the concern of the future that took them back to the past. When fishing meant going out with small boats, straight from the beach back to the clients. Fishes decided to focus on wild fish and started to work with fisheries that catch their fish sustainable. From that point on a close contact started with the MSC organisation.

Fishes Wholesale
Nachtegaalstraat 33
3581 AC
Utrecht, Nederland
+ 030 707 02 27
www.fishes.nl

Posted February 25, 2008

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