Lucky Star sees fourth-quarter supply breakthrough as Pacific season opens and Namibia tilts toward quota
By Larry Claasen
OCEANA’S canned fish icon, Lucky Star, is banking on three global sourcing streams and a local quota top-up to end its self-imposed sales drought before year-end
Oceana expects a substantial improvement in product availability in the fourth quarter as the North Pacific fishing season gets under way, Namibia readies its first meaningful sardine quota in years, and Morocco edges toward lifting an export ban that has choked off supply to the group’s canneries.
The outlook, sketched by Oceana Group CEO Neville Brink during the half-year results presentation, points to a sharp production recovery by December after two quarters of running the business in allocation mode and deliberately limiting promotional activity to conserve inventory.
“We’re expecting a substantial improvement in quarter four,” Brink said.
The Pacific fishery, which typically runs from May to October, is the single biggest swing factor. Brink said the group has “substantial orders placed” with suppliers in the region, with Korean and Russian vessels set to test catches “in the next two weeks”.
Product from that campaign will only land in the fourth quarter, creating a tight three months ahead but a visible restocking path thereafter.
Morocco and Mauritania, the other main offshore sourcing base, are also showing early signs of easing. A two-year lean spell in small pelagic catches is turning, and recent landings have overshot the processing capacity of domestic canneries. An export ban remains in place, but Brink signalled confidence it could be unwound after the Eid holiday.
Closer to home, Namibia’s sardine biomass is staging a strong recovery, and an experimental quota of 10,000 tons late last year has primed the group’s Walvis Bay factory for a far larger allocation.
The allocation was expected sooner and remains imminent, providing a nearer-term production boost once it lands.
In South Africa, the pilchard resource is described as “very strong” at the back end of the catching season, and the group is lobbying authorities for a second, in-season quota allocation. Brink believes the initial 52,000 tons total allowable catch was set too low because the research vessel Africana sailed late. A top-up allocation later this year would further ease the local raw material squeeze.
While the near-term remains constrained, Brink warned that “quarter three will be a low stock” and the business will have to “manage that stock very carefully” — the forward pipeline is the fullest it has been in 18 months.
The brand’s strategy is also broadening beyond canned fish, providing a second growth vector. Lucky Star’s canned meat lines are running at maximum output, a national noodle rollout is building a full value chain investment case, and a new product category launch is slated for the fourth quarter.
Brink acknowledged that the current shortage is a “short-term blip” and signalled that the brand would shift back to volume growth once raw material flows recover. “There’s plenty of room for growth,” he said, pointing to the recovery in Namibian biomass and the brand’s ongoing push into the UK and Ghana.
For the market, the outlook boils down to a timing bet: whether the Pacific harvest, the Moroccan policy shift, and the Namibian quota all land in time to restock Lucky Star’s cans before the summer shelf rush. Brink appears to have placed his orders on all three fronts.
