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Seafood prices are soaring but fishing company Sanford says shareholders are unlikely to see an adequate return this year.
NZX-listed Sanford said the current market price for skipjack tuna was up 45 per cent on last year, ling was up 35 per cent, snapper was up 25 per
cent, hoki was up 20 per cent, smooth dory was up 20 per cent and mussels up by 10 per cent.
Orange roughy, squid and toothfish prices were unchanged but should improve as supplies tightened.
However, last year's trading difficulties, including the high dollar and the cost of fuel, had continued into the new year, the company said.
Managing director Eric Barratt said at the company's annual meeting yesterday that the previous year's outcome and the likely result from operations this year would not deliver adequate returns.
Net profit for the previous year ending September 30 dropped 24.5 per cent to $19.7 million.
"However it is too easy to blame lack of financial performance on a high New Zealand exchange rate and take no action," Barratt said. The company would complete the introduction of new processing technology this year aimed at increasing efficiency, cutting costs and producing better products.
A potential major gain in fuel efficiency could come from co-operative arrangements for catching orange roughy and oreo dories on the Chatham Rise and in the Southern Ocean.
"The three major operators have agreed that their vessels targeting these species will each work in separate parts of the area catching the quota for all three operators in each area," Barratt said.
The intermediate and long-term future for Sanford was bright, he said.
"We have secure and long-term access to a wide variety of sustainable and well managed seafood resources for which the demand in the intermediate and long term will increase in advance of costs of farming, harvesting and producing those products."
Chairman Bruce Cole said sales during the first quarter ending December were up 17 per cent but as happened last year the gains could be lost during the balance of the year.
"Despite this, sales increases, several substantial, have been achieved in all but one market and evidence prospects of a greater security of demand in the immediate future," Cole said.
Global seafood consumption totalled about 150 million tonnes a year, with consumption per head rising in most nations and forecast to rise by 14 per cent a year in China.
Shares closed up 1c at $3.91.
