The CEO Sanford, Volker Kuntzsch, spoke to us today.  He has worked all around the world and started by giving two highlights of his international work.  He worked in Namibia and turned around a fishing company. 

 

The company was doing very poorly and required a large turn around. This came about when an employee with AIDS came to him to resign.  He let her go public with the information, helped her obtain medical attention and once she had recovered, he placed her in a counselling role.  His genuine interest in people helped the team believe in him.  This led to a massive increase in both productivity and profitability. 
 
In the US, his engineered a turnaround of another company because he had a voice like Arnold Schwarznegger (which was enough). 
When he joined Sanfords, the company was OK which was a big difference from previous roles.   He decided that they should not compete on being a commodity producer as the volume out of NZ is too small. 
 
Sanford’s vision is now to be the best seafood company in the world by having the finest source, uncompromising care and providing beautiful seafood. Volker believe the future of the company will be in niche markets and making better use of byproduct.  Moreover, there is much innovation to be done in this space.  In the future, he is aiming to form a coherent approach to our ocean policy at the national level.