SPEAKER
Lourdes Gant, Joe McElwee
Lourdes Gant 00:05
As a business owner of an aquaculture company, how can you take the first step to be profitable and sustainable at the same time? That’s what we’re going to be talking about in these episodes. Hello, and welcome to the Business of Agriculture podcast. This is the podcast for the Sustainable Business movement in the aquafarming and oceanranching industries. This podcast aims to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs addressing the United Nations Global Goals, a.k.a. Sustainable Development Goals #14: to conserve and sustainably use the oceans and the seas. Listen to fellow business aquaculturists in their journey in this new model of food production of making their business sustainable and help the oceans’ ecology – while also making a profit all at the same time. Get inspired to learn how even small- to medium- businesses can make an impact to save the seas, leave a legacy and have a better quality of life. One of our goals is to take away a nugget of wisdom that will help your business move from the Industrial Revolution to Business 5.0. Our vision is that of collaboration in the aquaculture industry. I’m Lourdes Gant, your host.
Lourdes Gant 01:25
As an aquaculture business, how does strong leadership and team management become key components of a sustainable aquaculture business? This episode is dedicated to answering that question – so listen in, and I hope you enjoy this episode. Today, we have Joe McElwee. Welcome to the show. Joe.
Joe McElwee 01:43
Thank you very much. No, it is a pleasure to be honored. And thank you very much for taking such an interest in our industry and continuing to promote it with your communication platform.
Lourdes Gant 01:51
I am excited to get to know him. But for our audience, Joe is a highly experienced aquaculture operations individual with a demonstrated history of working in the fish farming business, both in marine and freshwater environments, encompassing RAS systems for salmon, trout, turbot, halibut, Arctic char, as well as marine cage facilities with salmon, trout, and cod. He has practical knowledge in his approach with regards to business planning, water quality, international business, sales, management and environmental impact assessment. He has also strong leadership skills of intricate teams and associated task planning and performance, as well as goal orientated and achievable via team operations and integration. Welcome again to the show, Joe.
Joe McElwee 02:40
Thank you, Lourdes. That’s quite the introduction.
Lourdes Gant 02:42
So let me start by asking what is the vision of hima Seafood?
Joe McElwee 02:47
Well, hima Seafood, we’re a Norwegian company, and we intend to be the world’s most sustainable land-based or RAS-producing trout farmer. And we are going to do that in a number of areas – in our production, in our methodologies, our practices, our accreditations; and the style of management and leadership that we will show will be an organic, sustainable approach. And at the end of the day, the customer will know that they are getting a very well nurtured, cultured and valued product that we intend to supply on a regular basis; and it will be trialed – we will be doing trials.
Lourdes Gant 03:26
It sounds amazing. If you guys can look at their website, himaseafood.com – I was so surprised as it was very professionally done, but also there’s a little clip of a movie there that you will see that really shows how professional this company is. What do you see as a future trend in a fish farming business or the industry as a whole, Joe?
Joe McElwee 03:46
First of all, we are looking at an obvious move to land-based units for a number of reasons. One is the environment: and I will be talking globally here now where it is, rather than in one country. So there is going to be a shift toward land-based units. As I said, the first is an environmental reason that could also be pure practicality-based as well, you know. Also, the industry itself is getting a better control on the costs of operations, which up to recently were always considered very, very high. Now, taking away the current situation with inflation and the global financial scenario – when it balances out, we know we are getting much better hold on energy costs and the improvement on an exponential level of equipment and its performance, and its cost base is proven now to be very valuable because we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,whereas before it was just aspirational – now we can actually see it. So we have an environmental side, we have the financial side, the sheer practicality of moving on land and controlling everything about your product from where it grows to how you physically move it. Also, controlling literally the environmental factors which enable us to grow this product to to the quality and the standards we need. And we’re going to have a much, much less impact on the surrounding environment because they’re not controlling that as well – you know, with proper sludge removal systems or byproduct capabilities – and a lot more effort has been put into that. And then, people are actually wanting a more sustainably grown product – so they are very aware of what land-based can do as compared to other types of farming. And while marine farming is very important globally, and I haven’t done it myself – you know, I fully understand and appreciate it, it is and should always be part of this production cycle, it should not be dismissed at all in any way. This is a different movement in a different direction for the production of a sustainable product in protein. So, it’s just another part of where we need to be friends and neighbors with our marine colleagues – I mean that in the best way possible. It is not a competition as such, it is an alternative way of producing another product that we all work in the same market for. And we’re using each of the skill sets and each other’s equipment knowledge and each other’s logistical pipelines, so, it’s very important – we do not alienate ourselves, nor should they alienate themselves in the industry. But the industry is starting to grow globally, there are some companies in some countries that are better funded, and honestly, I’ve seen the start of this. But this is the same position we were in in the early 80s – you know, just 30-40 years ago with the sea sites when people were wondering, would that work – and they had to surmount extreme external pressures from weather conditions to lack of science or knowledge or stocks or genetics, you know – so we are taking that advantage, and putting them together to grow on land, along with a group of people – very skilled engineering, educated, qualified people helping us to achieve this angle. So we are going to be moving to land and many species tolerate land-based very well, therefore it makes sense. And the consumer base understands, in a lot more positive manner and like how RAS farming actually exists, and well, we are there to produce a sustainable product – and a healthy, nutritious product for everybody; that’s our intention, that’s what we aspire to do. So some of these farms are going to be very big. But to me, if we look at an Amazon logistics base, how big is that property or something like that? So it’s not that we’re reinventing the wheel here and going to build something that nobody’s seen before. We’re just using a different adaptation on some of the same technology, the feeding systems, the monitoring systems, the lighting systems. So it’s just the continued growth of our own aquaculture industry.
Lourdes Gant 07:25
I like when you were mentioning about balancing between the environmental impact and the financial side of things. For practicality purposes, it’s like this whole scenario wherein businesses doesn’t just need to have profit, but also look in terms of purpose or what they’re doing what they’re doing, as you mentioned, with the vision of hema. So one thing that I would ask – because I know you also have experience in terms of leadership – what’s one example you can give, where in your team, we’re not on the same page?
Joe McElwee 07:58
We’re dealing with a live animal. Not every day is the same. And it’s actually what excites me about growing fish is that – now, obviously, I want my fish to be healthy and survive, but every day, you are presented with some scenario or situation where you must to either think on your feet, or you must develop a plan. And that can be, of course, your obvious short, medium and long term type scenarios. But there are many times that, you know, I’ve been in situations where we disagree, we being whoever is there at the time – the management or the management and staff or be just about an approach. But at the end of the day, you know, you have to look at what is the best, most economical, most efficient way of achieving a solution to that particular problem. And when you’re dealing with a live entity, sometimes you may have minutes to hours, from weeks to months. And you have to deal with – you have to make some serious decisions. And unfortunately, many of these decisions will have a long term effect on either the production number or tonnage eventually because of the decision you make; or people’s views and how it should be dealt with may pan out correctly or incorrectly. And I’d like to build a team of people and I’ve been very lucky to be around people who are all very good at voicing their opinions and backing up the opinion with simple facts – straight facts are straightforward facts. And then you as a leader have to take all this into consideration then make the decision. And you know, unfortunately, not all humans agree with all humans at all stages. Welcome to personalities, but the majority of time you can come to a decision that people can see the benefit of, irrespective of whether they agree or disagree. But at the end of the day, the leader must make a decision. That’s why the leader is the leader and you have to live with that and hopefully it is the right one over a period of time. In short decisions are very easy to make, and you see the result. Longer term decisions in our business – you know, you have to wait the production cycle – sometimes 18 months 20 months later to see the result of that. And during that time, things may or may not still work out – or not work out, and that’s how we run our business. As you know, that’s also why we get experience. So the experience you learn from making these decisions is what takes you to the next one, because you will have another one very soon afterwards, being a live entity. So it’s building your team and having a team of people that you can have faith and confidence in, and an element of trust in – that they are, you know, they have the same reason as you to ensure and make sure your stock, your production cycle hits the targets that everybody – that is set for them to hit. And you do it in the best, most economical way, capable as a team. And sometimes you may have to go outside that team to get that knowledge or experience, and sometimes it may be in house. But we’re all learning – all the time, every one of us are learning every day, we want to finally learn something a little bit of new information, either from somebody else in that team, or from the situation that you’ve just saw. But you know, sort of around the original question whether the leader was lead that team and have, if possible, a very good team to lead.
Lourdes Gant 10:58
Awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Joe. Um, just for everybody’s information, Joe is going to be traveling from one continent to another, ao he was so graciously generous of his time today – so really appreciate you, Joe. My biggest takeaway from our conversation is when you were talking about dealing with the live entity – not just the organization itself, but the species that we actually grow. So having to balance that dynamism between thinking on your feet and creating a plan – I really love that combination, the same way that you were mentioning about the environmental impact and the financial. So thanks again, Joe.
Joe McElwee 11:35
You’re very welcome. Lourdes.
Lourdes Gant 11:36
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Lourdes Gant 11:54
Thank you for listening, and I hope you are inspired from this episode. Do take a moment and share this with your friends and colleagues and rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway from this conversation has been – what are you going to do differently? Please share your thoughts across social media and tag us. For links and shownotes for this episode, visit our website: www.sustainableaquaculture.ca/podcast . Thank you again – I hope you will join me on the next episode, and together, we can help create a better business in aquaculture.