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Fish shops – 11 years and growing

Every change in a society is either welcomed by its people or not. With the establishment of the Namibia Fish Consumption Promotion Trust (NFCPT) 11 years ago one would have thought it would be to no avail but since then the trust is still living up to its initial mission.
The main aim of the trust’s establishment was to promote fish consumption within Namibia by making fish more accessible and affordable to all Namibians. In this regard, due to the generally high demand for fish among the Namibian population the NFCPT increased its number of outlets by two at the end of 2012, bringing the total number of outlets to 13 nationwide.
The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources awards NFCPT a yearly quota under which they able to procure horse cackerel and hake, enabling the trust to sell the fish to the public at an affordable price and in order to generate revenue and to promote fish consumption.
Due to the small quota NFCPT receives from the ministry, the Trust is unable to supply large retail shops but only to do so for their own outlets. “We don’t supply to large retail shops because of the quota allocated to us by the government, it’s not enough to meet the high demands of large retail shops”, said the Marketing and Communication Manager, Charlene Hartung.
Hartung further noted that in order for the trust to meet the demand from the public, it sometimes buys fish from fish companies at more expensive prices to ensure the fish shops are well stocked. Nevertheless, the higher prices at which the fish is bought from companies does not affect the selling price to the public. The trust accepts a smaller mark-up on these stock so for the consumer the price remains the same.
One of the condition set by the trust is that members of the public may only buy for own consumption and not for trading. This is to prevent shop owners to obtain their stock through the fish shops as the first priority of the fish shops is to make fish available to the general public. This is also to ensure that the stock levels at any of the 13 shops remain adequate. “The more products we sell to one customer the quicker we will run out of stock to serve the rest of the customers”, said Hartung.
As part of its fish consumption mandate the trust carries the additional responsibility of teaching consumer various ways of preparing fish as a dish. The fish shops distribute several recipes dealing with the proper and tasteful preparation of fish.

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