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Image: Lerøy / FIS
Lerøy Seafood Receives Prestigious Award
(NORWAY, 4/29/2024)
The Lerøy Seafood Group has been awarded the Golden Fork for extraordinary efforts during Bocuse d'Or Europe 2024.
"With such an effort over time, it was extremely satisfying to receive this recognition. It feels good that an extraordinary effort like this is also noticed far beyond Lerøy's ranks, we are very proud!,"says Tom Nordby, general manager of Lerøy Norge AS and Laks&Vilt Oslo.
The award is presented by the Norwegian Gastronomy Foundation and the Chef of the Year association. The purpose is to honor, among other things, businesses that contribute to a clearer Norwegian professional community or promote Norwegian gastronomy to the outside world in an outstanding way.
The justification reads: "The Lerøy Seafood Group is awarded the Golden Fork for extraordinary efforts and good delivery of complex logistics of mandatory raw materials to all our European chef friends, with raw materials from sea, coast and plains. This contributed to all countries being given the same conditions to compete".
"We delivered raw materials with a very short shelf life to 20 nations throughout Europe. In order to achieve this, precision and a good network in logistics were crucial for the performance", says Tom.
Fresh Skrei
To ensure that the raw materials arrived at each destination at the right time, there were many people involved in the Lerøy system. In the time before the competition, the Lerøy Seafood Group delivered both skrei, scallops from Seashell and reindeer from Stensaa's reindeer slaughterhouse to all the participating nations so that they could train. On the day of the competition itself, they delivered scree.
Source: Lerøy Seafoods
"Skrei is a big product in Lerøy, and we at Lerøy Sjømatgruppen supply the best restaurants in Norway with skrei."
Tom says that they were extra proud when the star chefs who took part in the competition gave feedback on the ingredients.
"They had never seen fresher skrei. For Lerøy and the Lerøy Seafood Group in particular, it was fun to show the whole world how fresh the ingredients are, and with what precision we can deliver", he says.
Important event
Bocuse D`or Europa 2024, which was held in Trondheim, was an extremely important and large event for the Lerøy Seafood Group. When Europe's chef elite was to gather in the food city of Trondheim, there was never any doubt that Lerøy would have a role.
<-- Source: Lerøy Seafoods
"It's a great opportunity to show off to the best chefs in Europe. We worked many months in advance of the event on the details. We supplied raw materials of the highest quality for training to 20 nations, at the same time as we planned the event in Trondheim", says Tom.
During the competition days, they were also active in several fields. Lerøy Sjømatgruppen had a trade fair stand where, among other things, the Minister of Fisheries came to visit, they supplied raw materials to several of the pop-up restaurants in the Trondheim spectrum, they had a VIP room for customers where they ran a raw bar and held caviar courses, participated in several large events and we held a seafood course for 240 sixth graders from schools in Trondheim.
"There were many people involved and our Marketing Manager, Elin Johnsen, pulled the strings and ensured that everything was carried out exactly as we dreamed of and then some. The team in Trondheim also delivered at a very high level", he says.
No big celebration
Despite the award, they have so far only given each other internal recognition and a pat on the back.
"We will probably use the first opportunity where we see each other to raise our glasses and toast this award.
But nothing more celebration than this is planned so far."
"Everyday life is upon us and the next delivery must always have priority. In any case, we take with us positivity and energy from such an award. The motivation is there to deliver even better in the next turn", he says.
Tomorrow's chef stars
The Lerøy Seafood Group, which consists of nine wholesalers, spread across Norway, has around 5,000 unique customers annually. They are active in many different arenas, but are particularly concerned with imparting professional knowledge to the chefs of the future. The Norwegian Gastronomy Foundation, which organizes the Chef of the Year and facilitates Norway's participation in Bocuse D`or, is an important partner.
"These competitions facilitate the development of the cooking profession, they create role models that young people can look up to and general commitment to our profession", concludes Tom.
Source: Leroy Seafoods (Translated from the original in Norwegian)
(NORWAY, 4/29/2024)
The award is presented by the Norwegian Gastronomy Foundation and the Chef of the Year association. The purpose is to honor, among other things, businesses that contribute to a clearer Norwegian professional community or promote Norwegian gastronomy to the outside world in an outstanding way.
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