U.S. importer builds up market for N.Z. cockles

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 20

U.S. importer builds up market for N.Z. cockles

By

JOHN HUTCHISON,

in San Francisco

Fresh shellfish from New Zealand are being sold in rapidly increasing volume on the American west coast by an enterprising importer relatively new to the trade.

Mr Bob Wiedemier, a former lumberman who entered the fish-importing business earlier this year, visited New Zealand, in August and began with a shipment then of less than 300 kilograms of cockles, called clams in the American trade. He now sells' 6000 kilograms of fresh cockles and 900 kilograms of fresh oysters weekly, along with quantities of smoked and frozen seafood. His supplier is Becroft Bros, Ltd, of Otahuhu.

“A remarkable job where others have failed,” a New Zealand trade officer said. Mr Wiedemier’s Windward Trading Company trades

from Eugene, Oregon, a small inland city far from the state’s own considerable fishing industry. His goal is to sell 25,000 kilograms of New Zealand shellfish a week by the end of this year.

In the meantime he has tested the American market for frozen fillets of orange roughy, caught and processed by Polish fishermen in the joint Polish-New Zealand venture, Polmark.

“It is the best fish I ever tasted,” said Mr Wiedemier. His first container load for the market will arrive this month.

The live cockles and oysters arrive via Air New Zealand at Los Angeles in cooled, ventilated styrofoam bins twice weekly. Overnight road delivery reaches other American cities in California and Nevada, and Western Airlines carries them to Oregon and Washington, main-

tamed at a temperature just above freezing.

Mr Wiedemier explained his enterprise, now being developed for 11 western states but with national distribution in mind. He said that after 15 years in the lumber business, which appeared to be declining, he left, it to research the import field. .

“I investigated the fishimporting business and I found that New Zealand had a favourable agreement with the United States because its waters are pure. I decided on clams and oysters as promising a market.” He went to New Zealand, arranged to be the exclusive American importer for Becroft, and returned to set up a network of brokers and distributors. He now sells, in addition to the live shellfish, smoked mussels, herring, squid, octopus. and frozen groper (hapuku) fillets.