Established in 1990 in New Zealand before relocating to Denmark in 1993, J.P. Klausen & Co. has grown into a truly transnational company, with products sourced from around the world and a customer base that spans the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Founder and managing director Jens Klausen sat down with The CEO Magazine Europe to discuss the genesis and future of the company as well as the complexities associated with the seafood industry.
It was not on the back of a well-thought-through business plan; it was more for my own personal desire to start up a company myself, to be an entrepreneur, and started from what I had achieved in New Zealand when I lived there. When I arrived back in Europe, I looked at various avenues within the food industry which I felt I had the capacity to deliver on. Then, seafood came along as a good possibility, so I pushed into that. We started up with a few of the exporters out of New Zealand and had some good success with them.
From there, a business model started to evolve, which was based on personal relationships and helping smaller companieslike a fishing company based in the tail end of Argentinato knock on the door of European customers. I saw the possibility to come to them and explain that we have a platform and suggested they use that and work on an open-book system. I gained a lot of trust through those personal relationships, but from then on our model evolved and became the backbone of J.P. Klausen & Co.
