Narrator: Almost everyone at this market in Lagos, Nigeria,
is here to buy stockfish.
A coveted source of protein,
it sells for $65 per kilogram,
seven times as much as other popular fish, like croaker.
But no one in Nigeria
can actually produce this unique dried cod.
The fish comes from thousands of miles away in Norway,
where entire operations are dedicated
to supplying the stockfish demand in Nigeria.
It's 99.9% for Nigeria.
Narrator: A full drying rack like this
is worth over $500,000.
But because the supply from Norway is volatile,
prices fluctuate, and sellers here in Nigeria
have no control over how much fish gets here.
So, how did stockfish first connect these two economies?
And why is it so expensive?
We add our stockfish.
The stockfish is very important to Nigerian cuisine
because of the texture and flavor it gives to the dish,
especially when you want to have that local smell,
local aroma to your food.
Narrator: This is the fishing village
of Henningsvær in Lofoten, Norway.
It's the ideal location for drying stockfish.
Cod migrates here at the start of the winter.
After it's caught, the fish is graded by size
and tied to be hung on racks,
heads and bodies separately.
The weather here is cold, dry, and reaches minus 10
to minus 15 degrees Celsius with windchill.
It's so cold that there are no insects
that could eat the fish,
but not cold enough to freeze the fish.
And it dries the fish so much that after a few weeks,
not even birds are interested in it anymore.
These racks have the capacity
for as much as 4,000 metric tons of stockfish.
Nora: It's a way of conservation.
The yield is 23%,
so that means that we take out all the water.
It's a way of preserving the high proteins.
Narrator: Exposed in the freezing wind,
it takes three months for cod to fully dry
and become stockfish.
Once that happens, stockfish can be stored
for up to three years,
making it an extremely valuable resource.
This is a longer method than using salt
or artificial dryers, which can dry cod in a week,
but the long wait pays off.
Companies like Nora's buy fresh cod for 52 kroner,
a little less than $5, per kilogram from fishers.
Once dried, its bulk price is around
150 kroner per kilogram.
In Nigeria, it won't be sold in kilograms,
but in 30-kilogram bags.
Nora: These heads,
after two months, approximately,
we can take it indoors after drying it,
and we press it
into 30-kilo jute bags
and ship it in 40-foot containers.
And it all goes to Nigeria, yes.
Narrator: Up until 60 years ago,
the word "stockfish" meant little to nothing in Nigeria.
But after the Nigerian Civil War
killed more than a million people, mostly of starvation,
in the late '60s, everything changed.
Among the emergency supplies other countries sent to Nigeria
to combat the famine, Norway sent stockfish.
While Norwegians still eat it in restaurants now,
almost 100% of the stockfish produced in Norway
is headed to Nigeria, especially for home cooking.
In 2015,
Nigeria imported $8.94 million worth
of stockfish from Norway.
Narrator: Nonso is a stockfish dealer.
He's spent 20 years in the business,
going from retailing to dealing directly with imports.
He sells his stockfish
at the Otto White Sand Market in Lagos, Nigeria.
Narrator: The hot and humid climate
makes it impossible for stockfish to be dried here,
so importing it is the only option.
The stockfish takes six weeks to get to Nonso from Norway.
Narrator: But those prices will not be the same tomorrow.
Prices fluctuate depending on the season,
and because it's a more convenient trade currency
than Norwegian kroner, prices are set in US dollars.
They depend on the naira-to-dollar
exchange rates of the day.
And even then, there are two different exchange rates:
the official one set by the Central Bank of Nigeria
and the black-market rate.
Black-market rates, although unofficial,
often give a better picture of the real market conditions.
Narrator: In Nigeria,
these two exchange rates are very different.
Which one you pick to sell your stockfish
can make or break a business like Nonso's.
Narrator: In 2021, to encourage local fish farming,
the Nigerian government added stockfish
to a list of over 40 items
that importers have to buy with actual US dollars,
not naira converted into the same amount.
For Nonso, this made trading stockfish
even more challenging.
Narrator: The rise in energy costs
has also made the operations in Norway
more expensive to run, and that also reflects
on the final price at the market here.
Owen: I really can't place a time frame to
how long I've been cooking stockfish.
I grew up knowing stockfish.
I learned to use stockfish also
in cooking the local dishes, the local delicacies,
especially our soups, our stews.
Here is our
seafood okra
in all its beauty.
How lovely it looks.
First of all, you feed with the eyes.
The burst of flavors, the tastes,
all combining to give this wonderful aroma.
Narrator: Back in Norway,
the Nigerian market is too important to lose.
Nora: And it's funny because we have been trying
to sell to other countries this product also.
And every time we think
we've found a new market,
then we find out that it was really the Nigerians
living in the Netherlands
or England or the US.
So it's always the Nigerians who like this.