Sea Harvest’s newly-appointed CEO, Felix Ratheb, believes that the potential for growth is huge. “To date, approximately less than half of all South Africans have eaten Cape Hake,” says Ratheb. “As our nation develops, as education increases and as more people earn more money, the more aware they will become of the benefits of this brain food. And Cape Hake is brain food.”

Sea Harvest was founded in 1964 in Saldanha Bay, a small West Coast fishing village on the West Coast. One year later Sea Harvest opened the doors of its fish processing plant which incorporated South Africa’s biggest fully-automatic refrigeration installation. Adding value through vertical integration followed quickly.

In 1977 the Law of the Sea treaty put an end to uncontrolled fishing by foreign fishing fleets and in 1979 the first quotas were allocated in the deep-sea trawling industry. Sea Harvest received 38% of the total allowable catch.

Today, Sea Harvest processes fresh caught and frozen Cape hake into fillets, steaks, and loins and produces a wide range of coated, battered, crumbed, sauced, char-grilled and other value-added seafood products for retail and food-service markets around the world.

In 2008, Sea Harvest was purchased by a South African consortium led by the Cape-based empowerment company, Brimstone Investments and Kagiso. Sea Harvest’s empowerment shareholding jumped to 77%, making it the biggest empowerment company in the South African fish industry.

In the same year the economies of the world crashed. “Fortunately fishing had improved,” says Ratheb, “And with our international accreditations such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the Sea Harvest brand had huge credibility and was highly respected globally. We had to supersede the economic downturn through growth, through penetrating new markets in places like Australia, Northern Europe and the United States. And we did.”

Sea Harvest also grew its local market share. “In 2007 our share was 28% to 30% of the local market. The next five years we spent educating South Africans, letting them know that, every day, we were bringing the unprecedented quality, taste and nutritious value of our products ‘from our Saldanha Bay home to yours.’”

The company also solidified its relationships with the nation’s leading retailers. “Today our ever-growing range of 50 different products can be found in the freezer aisles in over 2000 supermarkets throughout the country.” By 2012 Sea Harvest, together with the brands the company packed for, had a local market share of 50 % and was almost 10 percentage points clear of its biggest competitor. “In a few short years we leapfrogged all competition and are now South Africa’s leading fish brand,” says Ratheb.

Ratheb appreciates the fact that the shareholders allow Sea Harvest’s people to run their own business and that they share the company’s vision. “People are our most important asset,” says Ratheb. Sea Harvest is the single largest employer in Saldanha Bay and the West Coast, responsible for between 4000 and 5000 direct and indirect careers. In the greater west coast area over 15% of all household income is derived from the company. When the town of Saldanha itself is considered, this figure jumps to nearly 30%.

“But we can do more to uplift the community of Saldanha Bay,” says Ratheb. “Growth is all-important. My role is not only to ensure that we’re fair to our workers and their families, I must ensure that Sea Harvest also gives a return to its shareholders. Therefore Sea Harvest must grow. We need more quota. If we get more quota we’ll be more efficient and create more jobs. Sea Harvest is the perfect company to create more jobs.”

A recent socio-economic impact assessment conducted by the University of Cape Town concluded that, based on the company’s capital investments, vertical integration, economies of scale and knowledge of international markets, Sea Harvest is ‘a national asset’.

In 2009, Sea Harvest together with three other South African fishing companies launched the Responsible Fishing Alliance (RFA) in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and recently Birdlife SA, advocating an ecosystems approach to marine resource management.

Sea Harvest was instrumental in developing an Effort Limitation Model to limit the catching capacity of rights holders and introducing the concept of ‘ring-fencing’; whereby deep sea trawling only happens in a specially demarcated area.

In addition, by-catch limits have been set and Tori lines have been introduced on all Sea Harvest vessels.

“Cape Hake, as are all species of fish, is a finite resource,” says Ratheb. “Sea Harvest will continue to do everything possible to preserve it. Future generations deserve nothing less.”