KARAVELA OFFERS GERMAN & UK DISTRIBUTORS A CHANCE TO COLLABORATE ON BOOSTING A NEW AWARD-WINNING VEGAN PRODUCT

Karavela offers German & UK distributors a chance to collaborate on boosting a new award-winning vegan product. Over the last two years, Karavela, one of the largest canned fish producers in Northern Europe, has turned to develop plant-based seafood alternatives with great success across several European countries and is aiming to spread to several new markets in 2023, starting with Germany & the UK.

Last year Karavela introduced its F’SH PEAS product line, consisting of canned spreads, flakes, and salads, providing a vegan alternative to canned seafood, whose main ingredient is the protein derived from yellow peas. The producer, based in Riga, Latvia, has significantly expanded its R&D capabilities by investing approximately 1 million euros into the development of new vegan products that would appeal not only to vegetarians and vegans, but the average consumers as well. In 2022, the line was expanded with the F’SH PEAS Wheat White Fillet, made of wheat and soya, creating a product that might be virtually indistinguishable from real fish to some consumers.

According to the Karavela Marketing Manager Rolands Romanovskis, finding the right distributor is crucial for the F’SH PEAS brand:

“The aim of this brand is to become the benchmark in the canned vegan seafood market, and judging by our rapid development in this field, we are nearing the goal of leading other producers by example, showing how canned vegan seafood should taste. It is very important for us to build long-lasting relationships with our partners, as we usually work with only one distributor per country. The UK/ Germany is one of the leading vegan product markets not only in Europe but in the world, therefore the distribution of such a widely acclaimed product line can be seen as a chance for our potential distributors to become the industry leader and to dictate their own rules in the vegan seafood segment. Currently, we are open to collaboration and are actively exploring our options,” he says.

F’SH PEAS products have also been recognised in some of the leading European trade fairs – the F’SH PEAS plant-based ITALIANO salad was awarded as Top Innovation 2021 at ANUGA Taste Innovation Show, while in 2022, the newest product of the line – F’SH PEAS Wheat White Fillet was included in the Innovation selection of the SIAL trade fair in Paris, in 2022.

As of early 2023, F’SH PEAS products are available in Latvia, Spain, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Belgium, Estonia, and New Zealand. According to the distributors in these territories, the products have become very popular in a short amount of time.

“Karavela company is permanently one step ahead with new ideas, innovations, and picking up trends in the market,” says Michael Schrammel, the owner of MSC BEST TRADE. “The most important milestone of such products is the taste itself, and I can genuinely say that these are truly fantastic products. Moreover, these products are targeting all consumers, not just a small group of vegans. So far, after entering 1000 outlets of Austria’s second largest retailer BILLA Austria and getting the first feedback from the customers, we can see that the sales are very strong,” he says.

Karavela is one of the fastest-growing fish canning companies in Europe. In 2022, the company produced more than 88 million cans of seafood, and posted a turnover of 72 million EUR.