Clearwater’s new vice president of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa arrives at a pivotal moment for the company’s European and UK scallop business.

Shaun Mitchelitis, a company executive for the past 11 years, stepped into the role vacated by Michael Hollis last month.

One of his main task will be to ensure the continued smooth running of Clearwater’s Scotland-based wild-caught shellfish processing arm Macduff Shellfish, bought by Clearwater in a £98.4 million (€106.5 million/$119.3 million) deal in 2015.

Europe is a very strong market for Macduff’s scallop business, but prices, consumption and market penetration in vital mainland Europe and UK markets for scallops have been in slow decline since around 2015.

This has encouraged the company to shift some of that production towards the lucrative Chinese market.

But as Clearwater CEO Ian Smith told IntraFish, there are some signs of improvement closer to home for MacDuff.

“We are encouraged to see that since there has been adjustment to prices in those markets, [with] prices coming down, that penetration is increasing, and at least through the first half of this year volume is increasing, [even] if value is not,” Smith said.

Macduff is seeing growth for a number of species in the European market, notably king scallops and langoustine, while it is also seeing higher demand for whelk traditionally sold to Asian markets.

The company has enjoyed “considerable success” in growing both its live and processed brown crab business in the EU and more recently in the Asian market, Smith said, “particularly exporting live brown crab to China.”

The Clearwater CEO declined to specify what percentage of sales the integrated Macduff division accounts for stating that the company now breaks down figures by species rather than by individual business units.

“It’s a meaningful part of our business and it has been since we acquired it,” Smith added.

Canadian shellfish giant Clearwater reported flat earnings in the second quarter of the year partly due to competitive conditions and lower selling prices for some key species.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter stood at CAD 30.5 million (€20.4 million/$22.9 million), a 1 percent decrease year-on-year.

Sales for the period grew 4 percent, to CAD 153.8 million (€102.7 million/$115.4 million), while gross margin reached 20.5 percent.

Fisheries

Clearwater's MacDuff sees signs of uptick in EU scallop market