Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis 0:01
Hello. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. Today's episode is with Halldor Thorgeirsson, and it's in regards to his company, Salties. What is Salties? Salties is a Canadian company that imports Icelandic fish that's fresh, alive in the ocean on Monday, you can have it for dinner by Thursday. And what are the logistics involved? How does it get to your plate? That's exactly what this episode is all about. So join me in learning all about fish logistics with my friend and relative, Halldor Thorgeirsson.
Halldor 0:37
So yeah, the company Salties, it's owned by my family. And that is a company that is importing seafood, fresh seafood, into Alberta, and distributed from there to well, all the way, we can say, from Winnipeg in the east, all the way to Vancouver in the West. So, yeah, that is what we do.
Bryndis 1:04
Yeah, which is really exciting. And it's one of those things that I love telling about people, because, I mean, you could have fresh fish that's never been frozen, that was alive in the ocean less than a week. And it's really a remarkable story too, which we'll get into in a little bit. So how did you first get into this idea?
Halldor 1:28
It was a very selfish reason. So we are born and raised in Iceland, so the go to protein for us was seafood. And probably, probably more seafood than meat. And when we came to Canada, we kind of didn't, well, we didn't, we didn't actually prepare for that the access to the quality, same quality seafood would be different here and in Canada, and it was in Iceland, we just took it as granted, and especially after we came to Edmonton, that it was almost non existent, and we started to look into, you know, how we could, how we could fix that problem. And a few years after, we started to think about it. Iceland there started to fly directly to Edmonton at the time, and my brother in law and his wife had actually established a company that was exporting seafood from Iceland. And we thought of maybe, why not get ourselves a seafood import license. Thinking about that way we could actually import seafood into Edmonton for our own self consumption. And we actually, through all of that, we got a license through CFIA and on and on and on. And suddenly we have established a company that had this import license for importing seafood. So we thought, you know, maybe you should try to do something more for more with it than just only, you know, do it for ourselves. And that is how Salties came to life.
Bryndis 3:17
And we're all lucky for and so can, if you were a company or someone that was ordering, what kind of is the process of?
Halldor 3:28
So the process is a bit different than most companies in our industry. So again, we want to make sure that the fish is fresh, just as it would be back home, where we lived in, in a small fishing village, and where we would only get fresh seafood, we would that would be the only seafood we would eat. So we went through and designed the processes we have in a way that when we get orders from our customers, the fish they are ordering are actually still swimming in the ocean. So the boats will go out, they will cut, they will take it to shore. They will ensure the fish is clean, parked, flown into Canada and distribute it often only two days after it's caught in the North Atlantic. So the logistics around it are quite fast, and that is kind of the magic behind it.
Bryndis 4:32
Right? And so it goes on is it still an Icelandic Air flight for the most part?
Halldor 4:39
So the process is that it, it is when after, it's after it fist that's landed the day after, we can say the day after the fish is caught. That is when it's cleaned and packed and flown into Canada and out of the hub it comes into it from there, distributed to, you know. To the city where it's actually going to be consumed out so, for instance, say fish that is even on a Thursday night, and in Banff, for that matter, was maybe caught on Tuesday before. And it has taken the route from flying into Toronto, Vancouver, and flown from there into Calgary, where it is. It goes through customs and then straight from the airport, distributed to our customers.
Bryndis 5:32
And it's a full multi modal process, because it goes on it's on a boat or ship, then it's, you know, on a truck, then it's on a plane, then it's on a truck again, and so it fully has, like, extra it's touching every area as it travels.
Halldor 5:52
Yeah, that's true. It is almost touching every area. And yeah, that is how it's done.
Bryndis 5:58
Well one of my favorite stories among many, there's a few. Was fairly recently where a friend purchased fish at one of the local kinds of areas in Calgary, one of the local markets, and they were like, look at this great Icelandic fish. And so I sent you a message, and I said, Where did the fish come from? I think it was the halibut that came from this location. And so you were able to send me the entire like it came off of this moment it was fished here, blah, blah. And so then I was able to put a message right on their Facebook post of like, this is the entire supply chain and story of your fish.
Halldor 6:50
Yeah, yeah. That is so during the time since we started, we learned that, you know, while we often get the same questions, you know, from our customers. You know, people want to know. People want to know where it's coming from. How was it fished? People want to know, well, they want the story of it. That's kind of, you know, how it is. And it's not only seafood, like that. You know, people want to know who grew their vegetables, or where this animal is from, that they are actually eating, and how it was treated, and on and on and on. And so we started to look into, you know, how can we actually make this story accessible to our customers? And we started to look, look on, actually, all the documentations we are required to have, first of all, to be able to export it out of out of the country, but also to be able to import it into Canada, you know, the product origin and all and all know that that all needs to be part of, part of the package that you know, the follows the product. And we realized that we could actually use this to actually make we can say, you know, to publish, publish it all with the product when we deliver it. So when we deliver our product, you will actually see on the on the delivery slip, where it was landed, but both caught it with what fishing method, what fishing method they used, when and where, on all of that, the boxes will tell you actually who it was that processed it and on and on and all the way that we just made all of this information public, right? That is what we did. So, when the consumer asks the questions wherever he is getting the product, if it's a seafood store or if it's at the restaurant, this information is actually available for them if that is needed.
Bryndis 8:54
right? And it's a really full understanding of every piece that you have in the supply chain, but in also, you know, the understanding of where is your fish coming from, how sustainable to an extent, is it clear,
Halldor 9:12
And that is what we feel that our industry could do better. It's not necessarily only selling fish, but when food is crossing borders, the authority in its country, both the country that the product leaves from and also the country that is actually entering, there's a requirement of origin. You need to have proof of where it's coming from. So those information, they are all there. It's just up to whoever it is that sells it, to actually gather it and make it we can say, you know, accessible, and that is what we actually did. So we, we, in a way, made a selling point out of it. Because, you know. This all the information are backed up by documentations that follow the products crossing borders. So those are, those are legal documents. Reah, those are, like the documents that follow when we export it. They are authenticated by the Icelandic government, so it's not like we are just cooking up information there actually. And we have some, we have some customers that actually audit it, because it makes more, well, it makes it, it is important to them. So they can actually call for us to prove the information that we hand out, and we can do that.
Bryndis 10:44
Which is so good. And speaking of customs and imports and stuff like that, what is it like, bringing product in, having to deal with two different kinds of import and export agencies. You have to deal with the Icelandic import and export. And you also have to deal with, you know, Canadian customs. What's that like?
Halldor 11:09
Yeah, it is, I can say that it's, you know, it is something that is always getting easier and easier. First of all, you know, the longer we are in this industry, the more problems we will encounter and we will solve. So it goes into the bank of solutions. But at the same time, I would say that both the Icelandic government and also the Canadian have gotten easier, meaning that more is online. Things have been made more streamlined because this is food that we're importing. Well, in the beginning, we had to deal with more than one government body, first of all, because it's food, it's CFIA or other and then it was also CPSA, so both of those had to approve the import. Now there have been some changes. That means that we only have to submit one application to CPSA, and that means the CFIA is part of that. So it's only one body that we actually submitted to. And so things are getting easier. We also, by time we have the we can say, you know, we have found partners that we like to work with, you know, in this so we have the appropriate companies that help us doing that. And the one that we are currently using as a company that we really like, yeah. Yeah. So it has been a good partnership. Same goes in Iceland. It's, it's, it's making sure that, you know, we partner up with people that know what they're doing. We can say, you know, I'm making sure that we do everything correctly. That makes it easier and easier. But it's a big process, though. Oh, yeah, and it has to be accurate, because, again, this is fresh seafood, so we can't afford anything being held up anywhere in customs or wherever, just because something was missed. It's, it needs to, it needs to be constantly moving.
Bryndis 13:21
Well, and that's completely it. It always has to be moving. And if it's because it's fish and it is that kind of part of the supply chain where you have to be, like, really careful of temperature control too.
Halldor 13:37
Yeah, that's another thing we have to make sure that when we are importing things that, you know, because we often route through few different airports and airports for the airport warehouses, even though they have, you know, say, coolers, there can be a big difference between the coolers, as you know, some some of those airports, they, or we can say, their warehouses, they they are more in, say, importing something that need to be kept up plus 10 degrees, while our products have to be kept up plus two. So we have to make sure that, for instance, the coolers we have, that our products are stored up, even though it's just over for a short time, good enough to hold our products and so. So a big part of our job is actually to follow up on what is actually happening. And we can do so by all kinds of you know, again, the processes we have in place all the way from just calling and asking and all the way down to tracking the product with temperature measurement devices that we do some from time to time. So it's, yeah, so it's, it is, it is a huge process in reality, to make sure that actually the fish comes into Canada, into our customer's hand in, in the state that we can say that if we would be eating it, we would like it, that is what we often say, is the ultimate goal of what we do. If we would not like to eat it, we wouldn't. We will not sell it, exactly,
Bryndis 15:17
Right. Well, and that also kind of reminds me of when you were kind of during the pandemic, and you know, it was right at the beginning. And I remember this story of, and I think it was just because of, you know, fluctuating capacities at different airports right at that beginning. And I think there was a kind of a moment where some fish got left on a tarmac or something like that.
Halldor 15:48
Yeah. So in a way, we can say that when COVID hit, which was for us, logistical nightmare, it it was actually almost like the last kind of event to hit, and actually in, in, in a in a string of events that were all kind of creating their own logistical nightmares. And now it's kind of probably, you know, everybody has forgotten it, but, but the few years, or maybe a year or couple of years before COVID hit, actually, or every single airplane, every single D max airplane made by Boeing, were grounded, And us relying heavily on our product being shipped with airplanes and we use actually empty spaces in commercial airlines. It's not like it's coming with freight planes. It comes with commercial airlines. Actually meant that suddenly the available flight we had from Iceland all the way to Calgary. They were reduced. I can't remember how much it was, almost like 30% or more. Because both Iceland there and WestJet at the time, they have both decided to use steam marks. They had already received a few of them, and certainly they had to ground. Big portion of their fleet that almost, for the longest time, every single flight, was almost running on 100% capacity, meaning that they had to throw out cargo. So there were a few times that the cargo was on board, and then they realized, from the plane being overcooked, there's too much locket. They have to have a certain amount of weight capacity for fuel. So they would just throw, throw out the cargo and take off, meaning that the cargo, meaning our fish and all the products, were just left on the tarmac. That happened again and again and again. So, it was almost like you can say for us some many other companies in similar businesses, it was a logistical nightmare, and then, and then COVID hits. But, but, you know, it was, it was a huge learning curve for us, and we had to adjust and all of that, and, and so today, you know, again, those are a few of the things that we have, we have left in our kind of, in our memory banks, you know, okay, if something like this ever happened again, you know, at least we have gone through it before.
Bryndis 18:46
Well. And speaking of that, I remember the one time Scott was telling me about how, because he used to help deliver, which we'll kind of talk about in a second. But he was talking about how suddenly everything in the order had to get readjusted. And that was because there had been a storm and there was also a holiday.
Halldor 19:12
Yeah so we, so this comes from the almost Arctic Circle in the North Atlantic, where, if there's almost any, we can often say that if you hear about tornadoes or bad weather somewhere happening in North America, eventually it's going to hit Iceland. That's just how it is, meaning that especially in the fall, in the spring, or we can say early, early winter, late winters, it is almost like there is a hurricane there every single week and so, so kind of navigate between those storms. And it can often be a difficult task, because, again, we have. At incidents where they are loading the cargo on the planes, and because the wind is so heavy on the tarmac, they can and the plane will leave maybe with half of the cargo. Oh, so multiple times in the past, we have had to adjust our, you know, shipments accordingly, and reroute things and but again, that is just our business, and we can say that, you know, that is our purpose to solve those issues so and like someone that is smarter than me, once said to me, when I asked, you know, I was, was saying, in all of those damn problems, there's nothing about problems. And he said, Halldor, if there weren't those problems, we wouldn't have a job. So we have learned, we have learned that this is just, you know, part of our everyday job. You know our job is to make sure that you know the product our customers need and are expecting to get their hand in this state, they accept at the price they're willing to pay. So, you know, this is just one of them. We have just come to accept that. You know, this is just, this is just what we do. So exactly, even though I sometimes say that I don't know anything about logistics, my job is almost 100% logistics.
Bryndis 21:24
Completely, it really is, yeah, surprise, well, so just out of curiosity, and now, because my mind is going back to the poor fish that didn't make it on the plane that's sitting on the tarmac back in Iceland and or wherever, and it didn't, or, you know, Toronto, etc. What happens to the fish then? Do you have somewhere where it can quickly go into a cooler, or, you know, or a temperature controlled and then hopefully make it on the next plane? Or what happens?
Halldor 22:03
When something like this happens, you know, the first number one, you know, item on our our list is okay, make sure that this gets into a cooler again and again. You know, those airports that something like this can happen in, you know, we make sure those airports have coolers that can actually house it. So, so and, and this is, you know, this happens and, and it happens to more products than just our products, so our partners, whoever they are, you know, if it's a warehouse stuff or tarmac stuff, or if it's, if it's the airline, or whoever it is, they, they have processes in place as well. You know, okay, it doesn't get on the plane. Let's get it into the storage it came from, so it will be taken back into the cooler. Item number two is, okay, reroute it. Where's the next? When is the next plane available? And let's get it onto that plane and get that going. So sometimes it arrives in two pieces, two parts, sometimes in three parts. But most, I would say, 90 some, 90 some percent, it arrives in one shipment, you know. So it's but, and in most cases, even though it happens no one, no no one will even notice anything, you know, of our customers. They will not notice that something like this happened, you know. Because again, you know, this is just part of the things we have to do, and we have to follow up on, we have to be keeping an eye on what is coming, how it's coming, and what is happening. And that is, and again, by choosing the right partners that we can trust and know our processes, then you know it, it works right?
Bryndis 23:46
And that's a huge thing, you know, as a small business, when you're starting up, going from like, all of the layers as you scale up. And so, you know, I was kind of alluding to it a few minutes ago at the beginning. It was a different distribution model that it is now. And so, you know, I think you probably did a lot of, you know, the initial deliveries, or you had someone like Scott helping you with deliveries. And then it, you know, scales up in different kinds of areas too.
Halldor 24:17
Yeah, yeah, it does. And, and again, it's all about, you know, making some kind of connections, because there is someone that can contact you with the need that you want to be able to fulfill. So you start looking into, okay, you know, who can help us get the product from this point to them. And so it's all, it's kind of like creating a channel that works, and then, you know, use that channel again and again and again until you maybe find something better, or or just, you know that that is the business. It's just moving products from A to B and B to C, and C to D, and all the way until the customer has it in hand, and everything is fulfilled in the way it was supposed to happen.
Bryndis 25:05
When you think back to the early days of kind of setting things up. Were there any kind of moments where you're like, you know, kind of thought, oh my goodness, what happened there? But then you can actually share?
Halldor 25:26
I would say that probably those, those moments was probably, I would say, when we realized, you know, what power would take when the D maxes were gone, that was probably the one of the bigger blows that we got, because it meant that suddenly the airlines, they they didn't have the capacity to move the product they have been doing up to that point. And there was really no replacement, right? That is just how it was. But, you know, it's like often, and that it was a problem that, you know, a lot of clever minds put their thought into and, you know, and figured out, okay, there's a way around it, you know. And then I then, I'm talking about people that run airlines, right, exactly, yeah. And the they created solution that work, even though it was maybe not as good as it used to be prior, but it it worked long enough until, you know, either other type of airplanes, airplanes filled the gap, or the, you know, they until they managed to actually start using the D Maxs again. So it was, yeah, that was probably one of the moments, because after, for a few days, after the, you know, this was announced, we were wondering, and, okay, is our company going to live, you know, is it? Because, yeah, if we don't have a mean to get it from Iceland and into Canada, and from the point encounter where it's going to be arriving at, until on to our customers up in that time frame we have, then you know, they would really know there was they would not be purpose where, you know, for us to be in this business.
Bryndis 27:38
Fully, well, and especially, I'm Sure, during the pandemic as well.
Halldor 27:43
Then the pandemic, because, again, we our businesses, is based on using empty space in commercial airlines. And there were no, there were almost no airplanes coming into Canada at the time. Yeah, exactly. So again, we had to figure out a new way. How are we going to get it into Canada and, yeah, that was another problem. And so we often say that, okay, those are probably the biggest blows that we can have in our industry. So we have seen it all until something else happens.
Bryndis 28:22
Well, and it's other moments too, like, because, like, we've received a few messages known as many, but every once in a while we get a random you know message from you saying, well, we've got an extra box of 11 kilograms of halibut or cod or whatever you want it? And but I think it's like, sometimes, like one order probably falls through and suddenly, suddenly, we've got, you know, a bunch of fish on hand.
Halldor 28:52
Sometimes you know, you know, mistakes happen. You know, boxes sent that no one asked for. Or, you know, shipment gets mixed, and, you know, something happens and, and then we try to solve it the best way we can. You know, it doesn't matter who, who creates mistakes, you know, we try to, you know, make sure that things are just not listed, right? So we try to, you know, make something out of it, like giving you a call and say, hey, you know, would you like a box of halibut, but yeah.
Bryndis 29:31
Which actually made for a really excellent Christmas gift. Yeah, we had fun. We drove around all of Calgary. Handing out fish. I think we ended up with like, six, 16, filets or something.
Halldor 29:46
Yeah, I remember that, yeah. So it's a bit, I have to say, though that is nowadays, it happened. It almost doesn't happen anymore. And that is, you know, just, you know, things get smoother. We realize that maybe something might be not clear enough, and so we change the process and and, you know, we get better and better, you know, one, one step of stuff at a time. And so, so this is, this is more rare now. It was in the past.
Bryndis 30:21
But that also kind of reminds me too, because you've got, like, two different models, because you were originally just delivering to major companies, restaurants, food establishments. And then you also, do you have the, you know, kind of delivery directly to the home as well?
Halldor 30:46
Yeah, yeah. So that is it. It started like this, you know, we, we would, we will be, we would be selling to friends and families. And so they often started to spread the news, so we have people calling and saying, hey, you know that person, or that person you know, told me that, you know, they got their fish from you and, you know, I can I get fish. So that is kind of how it started. It was not necessarily planned, but, and we realized that, okay, maybe the market is larger for that than we thought it was. And, yeah, so that is how, how we started, that we started to sell to, you know, through home deliveries.
Bryndis 31:30
Well, and, you know, it was kind of going back just as, just as a sign as another fun story that I personally remember is in delivery, because Scott had to do the original kind of deliveries, or helping with that. And there was one time when it was like almost a full fish that arrived, and it even had the fins coming out the side. And it was a very big box. And then he had to try to navigate them down very small, narrow stairs at a restaurant. But, yeah, it was this entire box of fish that, you know, he had to start to maneuver too.
Halldor 32:16
Yeah, yeah. They can't be, they can be large, that is, that is why, one of the reasons why we, you know, import from Iceland, it's not only that, you know, that is fish from our country. It's also because Icelandic fisheries are probably one of the most sustainable in the world. Have been controlled, you know, in a way, to make it sustainable for decades, meaning that we have fish species thriving around Iceland that maybe, you know, have almost gone extinct. For instance, here in Canada it is like a cart. For instance, one of the products we specialize in importing is the whole cart. And the whole cart we import is our kind of we can say semi large. So what actually is a cart? Because the largest individuals, we don't have boxes to ship it in, so we have to, but we though it comes in a relatively large boxes, but there's, there's a, there's a limit on actually what can go on a plane, weight wise, and otherwise and but those boxes, they are an interesting they are called coffins. So we get those whole carts or whole halibut or whole fish, or whatever it is, in both boxes, often, because of how large the individuals are. And everybody knows that restaurants can be small, and they can be in all the buildings where the corridors are tired, and so it can be an art, actually, often, to get those parts into the kitchen.
Bryndis 34:02
Exactly well, and so when you're actually packaging, can we talk, can you explain just a little bit of what the packaging is, Styrofoam, or is it big, what, what's in packaging?
Halldor 34:15
Yeah, what's in the packaging. Packaging is, we can say three kinds of so it comes in a styrofoam box, but it is inside a bag, in the styrofoam box, and then there's another bag around the styrofoam box. So we can say there are three layers of packaging, and everything has a purpose. It means that, you know, say, the styrofoam box for some reason breaks, because something falls onto it, you know, while it's going through the chain of custody in transport, for instance, normally, if that happens, the other two membranes, which is the outer bag or inner bag, they will hold so the so the product, or the quality of the product. Not going to be jeopardized. Same if, if the outer back is ripped, you still have the styrofoam and they still have the inner back kind of that is how it's all shipped. It is in those three layers, two plastic layers on the styrofoam box, on the styrofoam box, make sure it's kept cool. Then it's moved from one cooler into the next. Yeah, so it's, so it's, it's, that is kind of the idea behind the packaging.
Bryndis 35:34
Well, and, you know, I was thinking back to probably right near the beginning, when we ordered all, we ordered a whole bunch of langoustines. They were tiny little fish or scampis, and, you know, almost like mini, you know, lobster tails. And they all came in that box, but it was just, yeah, three different kinds of packaging, you know, covering, is there any kind of ice water, something to keep it cool that's in that packaging? Or is it just-
Halldor 36:08
Well it depends. So normally it is, well, there's always with every single product the first product is, there's almost like a small bag that is either filled with gel or water that has been frozen. But the main, the main cooling effect, actually comes from the product itself. So say that we are moving maybe a box of 25 kilograms of the whole cart inside of it. The packaging facility, they will actually cool the car down as soon as it comes off boat then it's often put into it's not nowadays, it's not even ice. It's put into super chilled water that has been loaded with, loaded with carbon dioxide. And so the fish is dipped in this solution, kind of so it actually cools down. The fish super rapidly, down to minus two. So when they put the fish into the box, it is actually minus two, but it's not frozen, okay? And, and that is actually that cooling down to minus two is put into a Styrofoam box, and then from there is taken into, you know, coolers, for instance, at the at the first airport. And, and that is actually what keeps it cool. So even though we put it on an airplane, and it's maybe there for four or five hours, it doesn't really drop that much in temperature. And if it's when it's taken off of the airplane and into the coolers at the receiving airport, the same thing, even though the sun is shining and it's plus 30. It really doesn't drop that much, but then it again, goes into that cooler. So, so it is for, it is again kicked down to the desired temperature. But it's more for the smaller boxes, which may be five kilos or less, where they add those tail packs, basically to increase the weight or the or the or the mass, because it really is the mass that keeps it cold. It's just having the whole mass chilled down. Yeah. So that is kind of how it's kept cold. It's so relative if you think about it, that small bag that you maybe see in a box, it only has a tiny effect on the cooling. It's actually the initial cooling of the product itself that makes it have the biggest impact.
Bryndis 39:00
What is your favorite fish or product for yourself to import?
Halldor 39:08
Oh man, it's almost like asking, you know what, what child of us is your favorite? So when I grew up, growing up in Iceland, we had to eat the fish that was hard to export. Yeah, that is how it was. So, for instance, when I was a kid, there was not much money in exporting haddock. Because, you know, at that time, the only people that would be eating haddock would be either people in Iceland or people that didn't have a lot of money in Europe, say, England or Scotland, okay, and, and so we ate a lot of haddock. And probably haddock is the one that is, you know, the go to fish for us today. But then we also have cod, you know, cod is something we, you know, very similar to Haddock and taste. But. You know, even if the texture is a little bit different, then we have all kinds, like tusk. Tusk is one kind of versatile vehicle, more and more often to you know, today, as you can do so many things with tusk and tusk, almost taste very similar to Canadian lobster, and you can almost do the same with it. You know, you can do the lobster roll out of it, but it's so much more affordable than that. The best fish and chips you will ever get is from tusk. Absolutely. It's like, almost like making a just think about it's like a fish and chips out of lobster.
Bryndis 40:33
That sounds amazing. I request that next time.
Halldor 40:39
Then we have, you know, down to fish like wolf fish. It's something that is as well, incredibly, lemon sole, the Atlantic Lemon sole is a delicate fish that, you know, doesn't need much cooking. And, you know, so I don't know what is the best. I don't know.
Bryndis 40:58
It sounds like everyone has their favorite.
Halldor 41:03
Yeah, I would probably say scampi as well. Is probably well our, our favorite, absolute favorite species we get, that is, that is something that we got used to when we were kids, because again, at that time, it was not, not a big market for it, but now it has turned into the most valuable export. But yeah, probably scampi. I would say, scampi. I could eat that in the morning, afternoon and evening.
Bryndis 41:34
I would Yes, that sounds exactly because I think it was the scampi that we got, and I remember our next door neighbors, we gave them one or two pieces, and they, their family has owned restaurants in the past, and they were like, oh my goodness, this is- my uncle will be jealous. Yeah, if you were to give someone advice that was either entering the industry, thinking of starting their own business, etc, what piece of advice would you give?
Halldor 42:14
I would probably say that, you know, it really doesn't matter what what you want to sell, like if it's a service, or if it's a product, make sure that you test it out, you know, in some way before you start, make sure that people are willing to pay for it. But you need to, you know what you need to be able to survive, right? Because, in reality, I would say an idea is never, it's never better than actually what some other people are willing to pay for it. That is, that is just the truth of it. You know, it doesn't matter how much we love fish, and we have tried to sell all kinds of fish, but some fish that, even though it's very good tasting, don't sell in Canada, and that really has only to do with that people are not willing to pay for it. That is just how it is so. And that it can be for the whole business itself, in one that I would say that would be my single, single pass the price, make sure that people are willing to pay for it, what you need.
Bryndis 43:30
I really appreciate our conversation. I think it was really, it showcases to me those inner connections, the inter modal piece, and it's such a great story. And I love the fact that, you know, as I try to explain it, you know, just in my terms, to someone who has no concept, and then I explain it is just, it's alive in the ocean on Sunday, Monday, you make your order on Monday, Tuesday, it's fished on, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, it's packaged, and you can have it for dinner on Thursday, yeah.
Halldor 44:17
That's yeah. That is Yeah. That's how it is, how it is, and that is how it is supposed to be.
Bryndis 44:23
And it's fresh and never frozen, alive in the ocean with and on your plate within a week. Yeah, from the other side of the country,
Halldor 44:36
it's like, like people often say to us when they get our seafood and see our seafood for the first time, they say, wow, there's no fish smell of it. It doesn't smell like fish. And we say, well, what is called a fish smell is really the smell of a product that has gone bad, and you really shouldn't be eating it. It's the same if you were buying meat, and it would be. Smelling like, you know, it would be smelling like that, or something rotten you should be eating that is just how it is. Is, you know, it shouldn't be. It should smell like the ocean, not like something you know that, right? And fish is something that is, you know, there's probably not a protein that is as easy to cook in reality, like one of our customers said, you know, if you have to, if, if you have to, if it takes you more than 30 minutes to make a meal out of seafood, you're doing something wrong.
Bryndis 45:36
Interesting. That's a really great way to think about it. I really, really appreciate the conversation.
Halldor 45:46
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Bryndis 45:52
Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples Podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review. For more information about this topic, you can go to zebrastoapples.com or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, TwitterX, Blue sky or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of zebras to apples. Have a wonderful day.