The Logistics of Fish with Halldor Thorgeirsson

Zebras to Apples

Host Bryndis Whitson welcomes Halldor Thorgeirsson, the Director of Operations for Salties seafood import company, to the show to discuss the logistics of bringing fresh, never-frozen Icelandic fish to Canada. Halldor explains the streamlined and multimodal supply chain - air, sea, and land transport - used by Salties that ensures fish are caught, processed, and delivered across Western Canada in days. Bryndis finds out exactly how fish travel from Iceland without ever being frozen to land on our tables fresh.

Halldor talks about how Salties sets itself apart in the seafood logistics industry by ensuring traceability and sustainability, providing customers with precise documentation about where, when, and how fish were caught. He explains how they have learned to adapt to challenges like extreme weather, global airline disruptions, and complex customs. Bryndis learns how the product itself is cooled to such a degree without freezing that it self-preserves within the multi-layered packaging without ice to arrive fresh at the destination. This episode demonstrates how much goes into the meal we order without ever wondering how an Icelandic fish got to a restaurant in Vancouver.

About Halldor Thorgeirsson:

Halldor is an experienced executive leader with over 20 years of global expertise in construction, precast manufacturing, and food distribution. He specializes in leading operational transformations, driving sustainable growth, and managing organizational change across Europe and Canada. His leadership focuses on building cross-functional teams, leveraging innovative technologies, and aligning operations with strategic goals.

Halldor’s career highlights include spearheading multi-regional operations, managing mergers and acquisitions, and achieving measurable improvements in financial performance and operational efficiency. With a passion for innovation and sustainability, he thrives on transforming challenges into opportunities for long-term success.

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Contact Bryndis Whitson:

• Website: ZebrasToApples.com
• Instagram: @ZebrasToApples
• LinkedIn
  
  

Contact Halldor Thorgeirsson:

• Website: salties.io
• LinkedIn: HalldorThorgeirsson

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Transcript

Bryndis 0:01

Hello. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. Today's episode is with Halldor Thorgeirsson, and it's in regards to his company, Salties. What is Salties? Salties is a Canadian company that imports Icelandic fish that's fresh, alive in the ocean on Monday, you can have it for dinner by Thursday. And what are the logistics involved? How does it get to your plate? That's exactly what this episode is all about. So join me in learning all about fish logistics with my friend and relative, Halldor Thorgeirsson.

Halldor 0:37

So yeah, the company Salties, it's owned by my family. And that is a company that is importing seafood, fresh seafood, into Alberta, and distributed from there to well, all the way, we can say, from Winnipeg in the east, all the way to Vancouver in the West. So, yeah, that is what we do.

Bryndis 1:04

Yeah, which is really exciting. And it's one of those things that I love telling about people, because, I mean, you could have fresh fish that's never been frozen, that was alive in the ocean less than a week. And it's really a remarkable story too, which we'll get into in a little bit. So how did you first get into this idea?

Halldor 1:28

It was a very selfish reason. So we are born and raised in Iceland, so the go to protein for us was seafood. And probably, probably more seafood than meat. And when we came to Canada, we kind of didn't, well, we didn't, we didn't actually prepare for that the access to the quality, same quality seafood would be different here and in Canada, and it was in Iceland, we just took it as granted, and especially after we came to Edmonton, that it was almost non existent, and we started to look into, you know, how we could, how we could fix that problem. And a few years after, we started to think about it. Iceland there started to fly directly to Edmonton at the time, and my brother in law and his wife had actually established a company that was exporting seafood from Iceland. And we thought of maybe, why not get ourselves a seafood import license. Thinking about that way we could actually import seafood into Edmonton for our own self consumption. And we actually, through all of that, we got a license through CFIA and on and on and on. And suddenly we have established a company that had this import license for importing seafood. So we thought, you know, maybe you should try to do something more for more with it than just only, you know, do it for ourselves. And that is how Salties came to life.

Bryndis 3:17

And we're all lucky for and so can, if you were a company or someone that was ordering, what kind of is the process of?

Halldor 3:28

So the process is a bit different than most companies in our industry. So again, we want to make sure that the fish is fresh, just as it would be back home, where we lived in, in a small fishing village, and where we would only get fresh seafood, we would that would be the only seafood we would eat. So we went through and designed the processes we have in a way that when we get orders from our customers, the fish they are ordering are actually still swimming in the ocean. So the boats will go out, they will cut, they will take it to shore. They will ensure the fish is clean, parked, flown into Canada and distribute it often only two days after it's caught in the North Atlantic. So the logistics around it are quite fast, and that is kind of the magic behind it.

Bryndis 4:32

Right? And so it goes on is it still an Icelandic Air flight for the most part?

Halldor 4:39

So the process is that it, it is when after, it's after it fist that's landed the day after, we can say the day after the fish is caught. That is when it's cleaned and packed and flown into Canada and out of the hub it comes into it from there, distributed to, you know. To the city where it's actually going to be consumed out so, for instance, say fish that is even on a Thursday night, and in Banff, for that matter, was maybe caught on Tuesday before. And it has taken the route from flying into Toronto, Vancouver, and flown from there into Calgary, where it is. It goes through customs and then straight from the airport, distributed to our customers.

Bryndis 5:32

And it's a full multi modal process, because it goes on it's on a boat or ship, then it's, you know, on a truck, then it's on a plane, then it's on a truck again, and so it fully has, like, extra it's touching every area as it travels.

Halldor 5:52

Yeah, that's true. It is almost touching every area. And yeah, that is how it's done.

Bryndis 5:58

Well one of ...