Management's Discussion and Analysis (cont’d) As a consumer-driven sales and marketing company, we  focus on matching supply to demand. Procuring seafood on  global markets allows us to provide products based on  consumer preferences. North Americans want good taste,  excellent value, and high-quality products. They are looking  for healthier and more convenient foods. They want a variety  of premium, restaurant-quality food at home. Consumers  increasingly choose seafood, as it matches these criteria.  In addition to organic growth, we grow by acquisition. Our  acquisition criteria are strict. The target business must be  complementary to frozen seafood, and must leverage our  existing leading brands, strong customer relationships,  marketing and logistics expertise, and product development  expertise. The Viking and Icelandic USA Acquisitions were  aligned to these criteria. We expect seafood will continue to be a popular choice  for consumers, and we expect 1  demand to increase for our  products. While many consumers tended to be more cost- conscious in 2010 and 2011, dampening our food service  sales, we expect 1  that cost-conscious consumers will eat  away from home more in 2012, increasing sales in this  channel. We also expect 1  retail sales in both Canada and the  U.S. to increase in 2012 due to new products being offered  and promotional efforts. We are committed to our goal of doing business only  with suppliers who share our vision of sourcing seafood  responsibly, and with a dedication to environmental  stewardship to ensure that our natural resources are available  for generations to follow. This proactive, ongoing effort will  include engaging with our suppliers in projects that make the  long-term viability of these farms and fisheries possible. Our two objectives for 2011 were focused on 1) Profitable  Growth; and 2) Sustainability.  This goal included:  For those fisheries that are not under assessment by MSC,  we will ensure that they are “responsible” fisheries. This  means those fisheries must use “best in class” methodologies  to demonstrate documented improvements in fishing  practices as reported by FishSource™ (www.FishSource.org)  or evaluated by an equivalent standard. For those fisheries  that have made sufficient improvements to enter into the  MSC program, we will require them to enter the full MSC  assessment process. With this commitment, we will require wild-caught seafood  and farmed products to either come from fisheries and  aquaculture farms certified as sustainable by the Marine  Stewardship Council (MSC), the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s  (GAA) Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program and the  Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), or require those  suppliers not certified to be on a clear, defined path toward  being sustainable and capable of documenting measurable  improvements.  We developed a three-year plan in 2010 to achieve our goal  in this area. We developed reporting systems to be able to  report to our customers on the status of certification of  all the products they purchase from us. We also publicly  announced that we made a commitment to source all of our  seafood from certified sustainable or responsible fisheries  and aquaculture farms by the end of 2013.  b) Acquisitions and related synergies, with a focus on  accretive acquisitions in our core business. In late 2010,  we completed the Viking Acquisition. By April 4, 2011, we  completed the integration of the Viking operations into  our U.S. operations. The integration effort went smoothly,  did not impact customer service, and strengthened the  organization. On December 19, 2011, we acquired the U.S.  subsidiary and Asian procurement operations of Icelandic  Group h.f., one of the largest suppliers of value-added  seafood to the U.S. food service market. As the Icelandic  USA Acquisition was completed late in 2011, the focus of  2012 will be the successful integration of this business  within our U.S. operations. c) Growth opportunities in emerging economies with growing  middle-class consumption. Our initial focus is Mexico  where a growing middle class and expanding supermarket  distribution are leading to growth in frozen seafood  consumption. We are also taking the first steps into  offering products in South America.  SuSTAInAbILITy  Strategic Goals for 2011 PROFITAbLE GROWTH a) Internal growth by improving our Adjusted EBITDA (as  defined on page 37) on existing business by 5% annually.  In light of cost increases experienced for raw material and  energy in 2011, we needed to generate top-line growth  as well as investing in our facilities to lower costs to be  successful. In 2011, excluding the Viking and Icelandic USA  Acquisitions, we increased Adjusted EBITDA by 4.6%. 17 ANNUAL REPORT 2011 % 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 26% Percentage of invoice sales from aquacultured species