Systematic change takes work and requires everyone in the value chain to be involved. To establish a new deal, we must rethink our current approach while at the same time reimagining new pathways.
The term value chain refers to the process in which businesses receive raw materials and add value through production, manufacturing, and other processes to create and sell a finished product to consumers.
BioMar’s value chain encompasses farmers, fishermen, technical additive producers, factories that transform raw materials into ingredients and nutrients, BioMar feed facilities, logistics, aquaculture producers, and finally all players related to seafood processing, distribution, and sales.
Sustainable solutions require innovation and a willingness to bear the costs associated with innovation, including R&D, due diligence, product design and testing, up-scaling, and commercialisation. These costs must be less than the perceived benefit to the end consumer, or the market will reject the innovation.
Collaboration, partnership, and explicit value propositions are paramount to achieving the transformational shift that our stakeholders and policymakers are demanding of our industry.
Integrating sustainability into the value chain
BioMar’s sourcing department is responsible for filling our facilities with approximately 5000 tonnes of raw materials daily. These goods are carefully selected to balance strict requirements covering nutrition, finance, logistics, technical quality, and sustainability. While nutrition and technical quality are more resistant to geopolitical and societal changes, logistics, price, and sustainability are highly dynamic.
Considering that sustainability must include social, economic, and environmental perspectives, genuinely sustainable sourcing will require an appropriate integration of sustainability criteria into our supply chain, the BioMar organisation, and the wider seafood value chain.
Collaboration, supplier engagement, and partnership
BioMar is increasingly aware that sourcing from the global commodities market carries risks our business has no control over, including the war in Ukraine, inflation, geopolitical upheaval, and energy crises. BioMar’s long-term strategic partnerships with key suppliers have proved critical to limiting the impact of these recent disruptions on our customers.
These partnerships have proven so valuable that BioMar is developing a roadmap to move beyond transactional relationships with our suppliers in favour of collaboration, co-creation, and partnership.
To support this, BioMar has initiated internal processes to accelerate innovation across functions and operations. This new cross-departmental alignment will help identify potential new raw material products and suppliers to collaborate with or engage suppliers to develop novel raw materials that do not currently exist.
Securing the value proposition for commercial adoption
BioMar can only introduce large volumes of novel raw materials into the market if the reward outweighs the added cost. Innovative raw materials typically follow a pricing curve where initially higher prices fall as volumes increase due to economies of scale. This means the value proposition must be clear and attractive.
BioMar must find leaders among our customers willing to share the cost of investing in sustainable innovation. Our task is to clarify the value proposition and enable our customers to seek better market conditions based on superior feed and seafood.
As volumes of novel raw materials are currently limited, BioMar will maximise the impact by funnelling these ingredients into Blue Impact, a feed concept optimised across multiple sustainability parameters. This strategy will allow BioMar to help early adopters gain market advantage for both their company and product brands.
Collaboration, supplier engagement, and partnership