the interview Carlos Diaz, CEO, BioMar With a career that began in the aquaculture industry back in 1995, first fish farming and then feed production, Carlos Diaz is a veterinarian with an MBA and several post studies in pharmaceuticals, management, marketing and finance. Throughout all of these years, Mr Diaz has witnessed the development of our industry; having occupied several positions in various locations around the world, before being appointed as BioMar’s CEO in 2014. According to Mr Diaz, who joined the company in 2000, “BioMar has developed a lot in all these years,” adding that, “We have a great company, a fantastic brand, committed people and owners.”
In your time employed within our industry, have you witnessed any significant changes and how do you feel that BioMar has reacted to these changes?
Definitely, in mature markets like the salmon market, consolidation is a trend. The commercial and technical skills to deal with this trend and with bigger and more demanding customers have, of course, been on our agenda for a long time. In the less developed markets, we see the same trend as in salmon; customers get more demanding, food safety and sustainability get more important and there is a growing demand for high quality feed based on the total economic performance of the feed rather than just on the price per kg. Overall, farmers are becoming more and more competent and have an understanding of the importance that this industry will play in the future and of the importance of feed in the value chain. This means that we need to be not only a supplier to the farmers, but also a partner. Moreover, sustainability and social responsibility are a must, and also a trend, so as a feed supplier BioMar needs to adapt and hopefully continue being in the driving seat all of the time. The same goes for innovation, research and development, where we need to create new feeds, concepts and solutions every day and deal with the increasing complexity of raw materials at volatile prices, getting scarce and more expensive.
Sustainability has become a very important phrase throughout the aquaculture industry in recent years. But why do you think that this is the case, and why should companies such as BioMar care about the world that we live in?
Sustainability definitely has become an important concern throughout aquaculture. BioMar has taken this into account when we redefined the BioMar Purpose last year, looking at who we are and who we want to be, more than a strategy only. In this purpose we identified four guiding principles that we strive for: Innovation, Cooperation, Performance and Sustainability. Our purpose is: “We are Innovators dedicated to an efficient and sustainable global aquaculture”. This is more than just caring about fish feed. For us, sustainability is a very serious concern, both in our operations and our way of doing business. Sustainability also is a tool for working with our customers and for differentiation, for telling the story and for developing even more attractive products. We have created very sophisticated tools that take sustainability into account, like the BioSustain concept and our Eco-Efficiency Manager. Having these tools we can really work together with customers and retailers in order to create value and be proactive towards consumers and other stakeholders.
With the opening of the fish food factory in Turkey in conjunction with Sagun, is that a region that BioMar is looking to focused on?
Turkey has been on our radar for a long time, for obvious reasons, we are leaders in high performing feeds for trout, sea bass and sea bream in Europe, and Turkey is a big market for these species. Using our feed factory in Turkey as a base we also expect to go further east, where we also see some interesting opportunities.
With BioMar opening a new factory in China next year, how significant do you see this as a move for BioMar in consolidating their position as a global leader in the aquaculture industry for years to come?
China has also been on our radar for a long time. As China is the biggest aquaculture market in the world it is essential for any global company in this industry to contribute to its development. We have been analysing different ways of entering into this market, also looking at what other companies have done. And by considering our business model, our cooperation spirit, and our size we concluded that setting up a joint venture with a giant like our Chinese partner Tongwei was the best. It is a perfect match and definitely we expect to take a leadership position in the market segment that will be addressed with this joint venture, since Tongwei already has a leadership position in other segments.
On November 19th 2014 you stated that, “The new BioMar Management Team will focus on delivering a strong global value proposition tailored to our customer’s needs in all the different environments where they are operating.” How well do you feel that you have delivered on this pledge in the time that you have been CEO?
I definitely think we have succeeded in delivering a strong global value proposition tailored to our customer’s needs. We have very nice examples of establishing collaborations, concepts, products, etc. with customers all around the world and in different fields. I really believe we make a difference. We have two main competitors, which are involved in other businesses, compound feed, premix, raw materials, etc. During our strategy process with AT Kearney earlier this year we analyzed different routes to go and we decided to stay focused on aquaculture. We want to be an agile and focused aquaculture feed producer, to be faster, more flexible and locally agile. We want to use our global strength to be competitive and we want to have sufficient critical mass to dedicate important resources to research and development and to innovation in general. When developing our purpose statement we decided to invite the market and stakeholders, by saying: “Let´s Innovate Aquaculture”. Furthermore, the name of our new strategy is “Shaping the future”, and that is exactly what we are doing every day. So in the future you will see an even bigger BioMar, always keeping our agility and closeness to the different markets.
74 | September | October 2016 - International Aquafeed