content_image/160014.jpg
Progress on this goal in 2013 include the American Pride Acquisition in the fourth quarter (see Section 5.1 of this MD&A for more information); however, due to slowed progress on our “supply chain excellence” goal as explained above and current headwinds on our U.S. food service business (discussed in detail under the “Performance” section of this MD&A), we are not confident we can achieve this level of Adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2015, and are extending this goal by another year, to the end of 2016. 

## 3. Sustainability 

In late 2010, we made an ambitious, but important, organizational commitment to source all of our seafood from “certified sustainable or responsible” fisheries and aquaculture, and we set out to accomplish this by the end of 2013. At the beginning of 2010, approximately 22% of our wild seafood was certified and 75% of our aquaculture seafood was from Global Aquaculture Alliance Best Aquaculture Practices (“BAP”) certified facilities. At the end of 2013, we achieved 99% of this goal and through this process, High Liner Foods has become recognized as a global leader in driving best practice improvements in wild fisheries and aquaculture. We will continue to work to achieve the remaining 1% of this goal and as part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, will continue to work on additional opportunities to improve sustainability across our supply chain, extending beyond the seafood we source. 

## Strategic Goals for 2014 

Our Corporate Strategic Goals for 2014 are: 

## 1. Supply Chain Optimization 

As explained above, we did not make as much progress towards the goal in 2013 as expected due to the challenges in our U.S. plant consolidation. Nevertheless, this remains a major opportunity. Our company has quadrupled in size over the past six years. We now operate on a scale that is far larger than many of our competitors and we need to take advantage of this scale to improve our quality and service and reduce costs. 

## 2. Profitable Growth – $150 million in Adjusted EBITDA 

As explained above, challenges encountered in 2013 will make it difficult to achieve this target by the end of 2015 and we have extended it by a year, to the end of 2016. We continue to believe this goal is achievable through a combination of supply chain excellence, internal growth and acquisition. In addition to integrating the American Pride Acquisition in 2014, to achieve $150 million in Adjusted EBITDA, we believe we need to successfully complete the integration of one major or two smaller acquisitions, and increase organic growth by the introduction of innovative new product platforms and market share gains before the end of 2016. 

## 3. Succession Planning 

We have a talented team of people with High Liner Foods that have considerable experience and work together well as a team. Nevertheless, we are planning ahead for a large number of retirements expected over the next 10 years, and succession planning activities are well underway at the senior levels of the organization. We need to make sure that we both develop and hire talented people to elevate the organization when vacancies are created by retirements and we also need to build internal capacity for integrating the companies that we plan to acquire as part of our growth strategy. 

## Financial Objectives 

Our strategy was designed with the expectation to increase shareholder value. To help us maintain a focus on meeting investor expectations, we have chosen four key financial measures to gage our performance. We have set these measures based on the performance achieved by comparable food companies in North America. These measures are: 

<img src='content_image/160014.jpg'>

* Excluding American Pride in 2013 

Each of these financial measures is discussed below. 

## Return on assets managed (“ROAM”) is calculated as follows: 

Adjusted EBITDA  as defined under the heading “Non-IFRS Financial Measures” in the Introduction section of this MD&A. 

## Divided by: 

Average assets managed  (calculated using the average net assets month-end balance for each of the preceding 13 months, where “net assets managed” includes all assets, except for employee future benefits, deferred income taxes and other certain financial assets, less accounts payable and provisions). 

