It’s not enough for global food companies to be safety-driven. Consumers and NGOs shine a spotlight on sustainability track records too. That’s why High Liner’s current goals include a sustainability drive that will require sharp focus while operations are aligned

CEO Henry Demone: “Let’s get in front of the curve and lead the change.”

Company: High Liner Foods Incorporated
Revenue: $627,186,000
Location: Lunenburg, N.S.
2010 Rank: 8

In the late 1980s and early '90s, Henry Demone watched in horror as Atlantic Canada’s fish stocks collapsed. Cod, haddock, and other species vanished due to overfishing, ripping a hole in the industry that had grown up around them. Once upon a time it was said the fish were so plentiful, you could walk on their backs from Britain to Canada. Suddenly, the ocean seemed empty. 

Demone’s employer, High Liner Foods (then known as National Sea Products), had been fishing the waters off Nova Scotia since 1899. In a matter of years, stocks had dropped by 95%. The company lost its annual raw material of 300 million pounds of fish, along with High Liner’s fleet of more than 50 trawlers, a dozen processing plants, and thousands of jobs. 

Almost two decades later, Demone is now the CEO of High Liner (he became president of the company in 1989), and sustainability is the corporation’s top strategic goal for 2010. “We know the implications of an absence of sustainability, and they’re serious,” he says. “To have sustainable global seafood resources is definitely in our long-term interests. Number one, it’s the right thing to do. Number two, it’s in our long-term business interests. Number three, let’s get in front of the curve and lead the change.”

The Lunenburg-based company chugged through the global recession of 2008-09 and saw consolidated sales of frozen seafood grow 3% year-on-year to $627 million in 2009, according to its annual report. Sales in Canada grew from $299 million to $305 million.  Sales in the U.S. grew slightly to $338 million, but the company is optimistic about its long-term growth south of the border, based on its acquisition of Fisheries Product International USA’s assets more than two years ago.

While the traumatic memory of the fish stocks’ collapse still permeates High Liner today, Demone says the real drive to build a sustainable fishery came not from the company, or even ecologically aware customers, but from non-government organizations (NGOs). A decade ago, NGOs focused on convincing consumers they should care about the health of the oceans. “While there is a segment of the population that cares deeply about these things,” says Demone, “to change the world in that way is a tough thing.” The NGOs changed tactics five years ago to focus on corporations. “It’s a very effective change model,” adds Demone.

Notable success stories are Sobeys, Loblaws, and Walmart, three corporate giants that are among High Liner’s best customers and that now demand fish products sourced from fisheries that are certified sustainable. Loblaws has stated that by 2013, all of the seafood it sells will be certified; Walmart has an April 2011 deadline. High Liner needs to meet those targets to stay on their shelves.  

About 75% of the fish High Liner sells is caught wild, but no longer by its own fleet. Instead, it relies on a global network that includes cod and haddock fisheries in the Barents Sea near Russia and Norway, wild salmon from Russia and Japan, and aqua-farmed shrimp from China. “We are working actively to improve the sustainability of fisheries in various parts of the world,” says Demone. 

In 2009 High Liner created a sustainability council to co-ordinate efforts to reduce its environmental impact and improve and measure resource consumption and waste production in its plants, as well as the transportation and distribution of its products. Its new corporate director of sustainability, Bill DiMento, oversees the efforts. 

An internal campaign about sustainable thinking was built around the slogan “Respect: Our planet. Our promise.” That can be as basic as installing efficient lighting or exploring ways to cut waste. For example, new equipment in a U.S. plant leaks heat, and engineers are studying ways to recapture the lost energy. “A few years ago, I think people would have pumped that heat out into the New England winter,” says Demone. 

High Liner has recruited the NGO Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) to help monitor its global supply chain. A network based in San Francisco, SFP helps High Liner collect and organize data. Howard Johnson, SFP’s director of global programs, is an Oregon-based consultant who has worked with High Liner since the start of 2010. Johnson spent 30 years in the seafood business before joining SFP, which is funded by corporate sponsorship and foundation grants. “I tell people, particularly in companies, to make the business case for sustainability,” he says. “Consumers aren’t driving this as much as the situation is.”

That means guaranteeing supply into the future, making certain to buy from a legal fishery, and ensuring that the company knows exactly what it’s getting and where it’s coming from. “High Liner is in good shape in terms of the primary fisheries it sources from and the products it sells,” says Johnson. “We’re not in the business of engaging a company just so they can say they’re engaged with us. We expect them to do certain things.”

Colour, a Halifax-based communications firm, is helping High Liner get its sustainable message out. Senior vice-president Rob Batherson says it plans to roll out a website on sustainable seafood so both High Liner’s wholesale and retail customers can quickly determine where the food is coming from and if it’s certified sustainable. 

“Customers are looking to ensure that the seafood they eat comes from safe and secure sources,” says Batherson. In addition, High Liner is doing a great deal of work to trace the source of its seafood as an integral part of its sustainability efforts. As they gain more information, the website will be updated. High Liner reports progress to its corporate clients monthly and annually. If it isn’t making clear advances, it risks losing business. “It’s an ambitious list of projects we need to implement,” says CEO Henry Demone, “but we’re on track.” 

Sustainability might bear fruit close to home, according to SFP’s Howard Johnson. “There is some interest in seeing if the kind of work we do in fishery improvement can be applied to the cod stocks off of Eastern Canada,” he says.