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Saturday
May122012

Tom Kehoe, American Expert On Food Distribution, Visits

 

Tom Kehoe of K & B Seafood and Seaflight Logistics with Nanouly Bigvava (center) owner of the Mandarin Cafe in Sochi

 

Tom Kehoe, the Chief Executive Officer of K & B Seafood and Partner at Seaflight Logistics, both of New York, visited Sochi with a group of foreign executives, including an official of a French seafood firm, and several from one of Russia's leading seafood distribution firms.  Mr. Kehoe has enjoyed a long career in the seafood distribution business. His business was built in New York City, one of the most competitive and innovative business environments in the world, and it has grown to shipping products to every time zone in the world.

Mr. Kehoe got involved in the seafood distribution business in the United States in the 1970's, when he began shipping Maine lobsters to New York.  Mr. Kehoe and his firm have been successful in New York, despite the logistical difficulties of distributing expensive and highly perishable food items in a large and congested city to an exacting and sophisticated clientele.  With Mr. Kehoe founding K & B Seafood, his business grew to other seafood products and K&B took on the role of supplying Alaskan seafood to the New York market and eventually supplying seafood nationwide.   Among their specialities, K & B feature crab, scallops and other shellfish, including more than 50 varieties of oysters. In recent years, he and K & B have expanded internationally and now their products are distributed in Russia and to many of the nation's finest restaurants.  

The understanding of the complicated processes of moving perishable cargo from remote locations through customs and to multiple destinations through congested traffic led him to found Seaflight Logistics in 2009.  The company is a freight forwarder and specializes in the global logistics of perishables.

Mr. Kehoe's interests and career is not limited to food distribution, he also serves as a Trustee of the Village Board of Northport, New York, a bucolic and affluent town on Long Island.  He is Commissioner of Commerce, where he works with the business community and also Commissioner of Sanitation, where he is responsible for the policy and budgets of the waste water treatment facility.  Mr. Kehoe is a member of the world-famous New York Athletic Club, founded in 1866, and known as "the world's greatest athletic club'.  The NYAC has sponsored hundreds of prominent athletes, who have cumulatively won hundreds of medals at Olympic competitions, including 7 gold medals  (13 overall- more than most nations!) alone at the Beijing Summer Games and who have won scores of national championships in boxing, wrestling, track and field, rowing, fencing and other sports.  Mr. Kehoe's participation does not end at the sideline though. He was a competitive swimmer, is a surfer and holds two 3rd Degree Black Belts. Two of his daughters were elite fencers and one is now the coach at the NYAC, where one of his sons is a heavyweight boxer.

Mr. Kehoe's background gives him an understanding of the challenges faced in moving people and products. He knows how to work effectively with city, state and federal officials and he has a strong background in sports.  All of this drew him to Sochi, where we talked about some of the challenges that Sochi will face as the Winter Games approach.  First, he expressed delight at the verdant beauty of Sochi, saying that when he got off the airplane, he did "not expect to see palm trees in Russia!"  and then spoke about the scale of construction here.  I asked him what his approach would be in moving people and perishables during the Games.  He told me he is "am acutely aware of what congestion does to perishables, schedules and the movement and safe passage of our most precious commodity, people" and that his firm  "has staff entirely devoted to these issues"  He went on to say that working with the administration here in Sochi will be crucial to make sure that planning is complete.  He said that an understanding of the needs of local business will be required to satisfy the visitors' expectations.  We talked at length about challenges he has faced and novel solutions that Seaflight has developed in multi jurisdictional shipping and distribution.  

Since Mr. Kehoe returned to New York, we have spoken by telephone and he has expressed interest in the potential in Sochi, even suggesting to an institutional investor to travel to Sochi to investigate the possibilities of hotel development.  He sees what I do:  a city on the cusp of developing into an international and year-around destination.

Wednesday
May092012

Victory Day In Sochi

Today, May 9, Sochi observed Victory Day, the day of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.  A moment of silence was observed at the central memorial.  Sochisiders spent the day in the parks, at a concert on Administration and on the streets.  The cafes and restaurants have been filled all day with families and parties as people celebrated the beautiful weather and the victory won at incredible costs.  

I met Sochi Mayor Anatoli Nikolayevich Pakhomov near Riviera Park at a celebration honoring some of the city's surviving veterans of what is known as the Great Patriotic War.

 

Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov and Veterans

Monday
May072012

May Sochi Rental Summary

The residential rental market in Sochi's Adler District (home to the Olympic Park) continues to tighten.  We are working with several companies renting apartments and are seeing a rapid absorption of available capacity and rising prices in the few newer buildings in Adler's center that conform to western standards.  A one room apartment with western standards will cost from 40,000- 50,000 rubles per month (about $1,330 to $1,660).  A two room apartment will cost from about 65,000 rubles to 80,000 rubles a month (app. $2,160- $2,660).  A larger apartment with three rooms, runs from 90,000- 120,000 + rubles each month (app.$3,000- $4,000).   Utilities will vary according to size and location.  Bear in mind, that Russian apartments consider rooms, rather than bedrooms, the standard.  A room is anything other than a kitchen, bathroom, corridor or balcony (living rooms frequently double as bedrooms). 

 

Adler Rental

Central Sochi, regarded as a more desirable location because of its physical beauty, shopping, restaurants and a larger number of western-style apartments, is now somewhat less expensive than central Adler District.  The distance between Adler (and the Olympic Park) and central Sochi is only about 25 kilometers, but the commute can be long.  Nonetheless, for those who work in the center or with flexible schedules, Sochi is becoming an increasingly attractive opportunity because the ruble goes further.

 

Sochi Rental

One room apartments with western standards in the pedestrian center of Sochi will run from 35,000- 60,000 rubles per month (app. $1,160- $2,000).  Two room apartments cost 40.000 to 60,000 rubles each month (app. $1,330. $2,000).  An apartment with three rooms  (85 - 100 square meters) will run from 70,000 to 100,000 rubles monthly (app. $2,330- $3,330) and up to 120,000 (app. $4,000) for the best and largest apartments on the best streets.  There are large, two-floor penthouses with spectacular views available at monthly rentals of 125,000 to 300,000 + rubles (app. $4,160- $10,000).

 

Penthouse View

Office space in Adler runs about 1,200- 1,500 rubles per square meter per month ($3.68 to $4.60 per square foot per month).  Central Sochi offices also typically costs from 1,200 to 1,500 rubles per square meter per month.  A new mixed-use building in the center with sweeping views of the city offers offices from as small as 18 square meters to a larger suite of about 220 square meters at 1,300 rubles per square meter per month ($3.99 per square foot per month). The new Class "A" building (shown below) near the Sochi City Administration has offices ranging from 2,500 rubles to 5,000 rubles per square meter per month ($7.68 to $15.35 per square foot per month).

Please contact me directly for workforce accommodations, office rentals and all desination management needs, including transport, documentation, communication and event management: bruce@destinationsochi.com

 

New Office Building

Sunday
May062012

Video Of May Day In Sochi

We have posted a new video on SochChannel.com of the events held in Sochi on May Day.  The traditional worker's holiday is celebrated all across Russia on the 1st of May.  Sochi celebrated the holiday with a parade past the Winter Theater.  Park Dendrary was opened to the public free of charge, also.

 

 

Thursday
May032012

Sochi Newsletter- May 3

Sochi Newsletter- May 3 has been sent to subscribers.  Included are photos and details about May Day in Sochi and other recent developments in Sochi.  Please follow this link and sign up for the newsletter.  Next week, in the newsletter, we will include a summary of our survey of office and residential rental prices for central Sochi and Adler. We are currently working with outside groups on workforce accommodation.  It looks like the predicted rise in prices is happening already.  Prices in Adler for apartments with western standards in the best locations are eclipsing levels in central Sochi.