Taking The Reins Of CFTO’s 14 Strong Seiner Fleet

He has nearly 30 years of tuna industry experience and now heads a company that boasts one of the largest tuna purse seine fleets globally, but for CFTO’s CEO, Auke Van De Kerk, ambitions are bigger.

The Chief Executive Officer of French tuna firm, Compagnie Française du Thon Océanique (CFTO), is concerned by the fact that yellowfin quotas in the Indian Ocean could be driving increased FAD fishing and that there are still negative images of tuna and the industry among consumers. He believes stakeholders in the sector must become more aligned when following conservation measures and focusing on sustainability, in order to reverse this.

Van De Kerk himself has been ingrained in the tuna industry since 1989, when he started working for Dutch company Jaczon, which held a 10 percent share in CFTO until it was taken over by Parlevliet & Van Der Plas (P&P). The French company is now entirely owned by P&P, another Dutch fishing player, which bought CFTO in mid-2016, for an undisclosed sum.

With extensive knowledge already in the catch of mackerel, herring, cod, haddock, shrimp and more, this was the first dive into the tuna industry for family-run P&P, which is one of the biggest ship owners in Europe. Today P&P is present at tuna industry conferences and RFMO meetings, alongside CFTO’s own management, keen to have their say and influence on future decisions.

P&P was established in 1949 and now the third generation is already installed in the firm. As well as moving into the tuna industry it also recently acquired 40 small-scale shrimp vessels, and has production spanning different fish species in Germany, the Faroe Islands and its home country too.

Aside from the appointment of Van De Kerk to the leading role in CFTO, P&P kept the company’s management very much the same, and the core mission of CFTO – to work sustainably – is shared by the company. This involves a prioritization of free-school fishing where possible, and an opinion that the extent of FAD use has reached a level that requires strengthened control. Mature yellowfin tuna are targeted predominantly, to avoid catch of small sized tuna species. Van De Kerk explains to Atuna he was already a member of the CFTO board before his move to CEO, and “knew already the company had good potential”.

Since starting in the industry he considers that there is a much more professional flare these days, and that one of the main changes has been the presence of NGOs, which has adapted the “landscape”. For Van De Kerk this is positive, as his view is that a constructive cooperation between all stakeholders can encourage consumers to buy more tuna. “The negative opinion about tuna is something that needs to be reversed,” he stresses.

His shift to leading a French company sees Van De Kerk spending most of his time in Concarneau, in the Brittany region of France where CFTO is based. The fishermen of the area are “passionate with an attitude that is hard to find elsewhere in the tuna industry,” he states.

The Dutch and French way of working fit very well together, he explains, as ultimately both have the same goal. This is expressed as he adds that CFTO fishermen do not just talk about, but actually practice sustainable tuna fishing. While this means it will “remain a challenge to compete with other fleets”, especially due the smaller size of CFTO seiners, he sees a positive future for the company.

One of the biggest changes Van De Kerk has noticed for CFTO, since its takeover, is that it is now truly a fishing company again, with only one major shareholder. According to him, this shareholder is aware that catches and prices in this industry are volatile. “From a working point of view, due to the simplified structure we’re able to adapt our strategy quickly and all decisions can be made quite fast.”

With Van De Kerk arriving in Concarneau around six months before yellowfin catch quotas were implemented in the Indian Ocean, the biggest catching ground for CFTO seiners, their adoption added some complexity to his management. However, he said that with the catch limits put in place, at the same time “prices started picking up”.

An advantage of the company is that it has experience with quotas, which have been “known for many years” in European waters, where both Jaczon and P&P have presence within other fisheries. For this reason, the new management “already knew the impact on the fisheries and how to limit it,” he confidently says.

The difference came mostly for the crews though, who have been used to an uninterrupted way of fishing for quite some time. However, now into the second year of the catch limit they are adjusting and “getting used to it”, Van De Kerk believes. As well as this, “they support the change which saw an end to Olympic fishing and bigger and faster boats entering the fleet year after year”.

But despite being strongly behind the conservation measures taken by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), it is obvious that Van De Kerk has still experienced their impact. “It has severely affected half of our fleet,” he says, and refers to the fact that per-vessel catch limits were not set until half way through last year. “The vessels were catching relatively well in the first semester, and only then we came into a temporary quota agreement,” the CEO explains.

For this reason he said that in the second half of 2017 vessels had to stop “long before the end of their trips due to a shortage of quota. We lost quite a lot of fishing days and for the crew and company this marked a difficult period.”

Van De Kerk sees much more room for improvement in terms of quota allocation and management. “We wonder if those improvements can be managed within the next five years,” he says. He adds that “it is more of a political issue than it is depending on the fleets,” and refers to agreements that must be reached during IOTC & ICCAT meetings.

In addition to this, he suggests that the conservation measure has actually increased FAD fishing. For CFTO, there is now around a 50 percent split when it comes to FAD and free-school sets in the IO, when before the quota, a higher 75 percent were free-school.

Other sources have suggested the same, explaining that free-school sets haul in much larger, heavier yellowfin, consuming more quota. FAD sets on the other hand mostly lead to strong skipjack landings, and small yellowfin, filling the quota more slowly, but increasing the catch of small tunas. This increase in FAD fishing is quite remarkable considering many believed the overfished status of yellowfin was actually caused by excessive FAD operations in the first place.

For CFTO, the control of the “quantitative use of FADs” is a pressing matter, and the company’s CEO stresses there is no strong system in place for this currently.

Ultimately, he hopes that the whole industry will adapt and follow the measures taken to control and limit tuna catches. “Once this is done, consumers will return to be confident in buying their beloved tuna,” Van De Kerk remarks.

Despite the IO quota and the closure of the Gabon EEZ in the Atlantic, where CFTO seiners also operate, the company landed 80,000 tons of tuna last year. Van De Kerk hopes and expects this will increase in 2018. A capital intensive investment program for the fleet has been created, which will be finalized early next year, and will aid its development.

Additionally, the firm will come to a point where it will “demolish and replace” the older vessels in the fleet, he reveals. “Under new ownership we are able to invest in the vessels, to increase their technical performance and safety level. We are able to change logistics that serve the fleet better.” On shore, the CEO notes that the previous office building has been completely renovated and this reflects the changes made in the company altogether.

While today it is “not crystal clear” which exact direction CFTO will take over the next few years, it will surely be different from ocean to ocean. Van De Kerk does mention P&P’s recent purchase of leading German processor, Deutsche See. There are tuna products within its current range, such as frozen yellowfin medallions, and fresh tuna fillets, and he says that CFTO’s future developments could be swayed by the acquisition. “It will be logical to see if we can work on common ground.”

Van De Kerk emphasizes that the industry is not aligned and this is creating confusion among consumers, who do not know whether the tuna they are buying is under threat. He stresses that children in schools are also educated with the idea that tuna is an “endangered species” and we need to “reverse the trend for now and the future.”

Consolidation in terms of mergers and acquisitions within the industry, which has been seen from P&P itself, will not stop in the next five years on either side of the operation, both fishing and processing, Van De Kerk believes. But what needs to come with this, according to him, is a stronger focus on driving sustainability through a more integrated sector. CFTO is trying to lead this through its traditional concentration on large yellowfin, from mostly free-school operations.

For the firm this is strategic in terms of economics; it brings a better yield with higher prices usually paid for mature, large sized yellowfin, compared to smaller yellowfin tunas or skipjack. As well as this, in terms of demand, yellowfin tuna is the most popular consumed species within France, where CFTO’s operations are already concentrated. It is usually packed raw for the French market, a premium product which also carries a larger price tag on supermarket shelves.

While these factors benefit the company greatly, the main importance is the sustainability that comes with this focus; less juveniles are caught and there is low bycatch of other species, not just tuna. It is believed by CFTO that a stronger approach like this across the entire industry is not only likely to boost tuna sales and increase consumer confidence, but it will also protect stocks, enhance overall sustainability and ultimately keep business alive.