11 minute read
Processing
This year has seen seafood businesses on the acquisition trail, while many UK operators struggled with Covid-19 and Brexit
IN January, one of the UK’s leading traditional
smoked salmon companies reported revenue growth of more than a third despite the
challenges of the pandemic. Grants Oak Smoked Ltd – based in Maryport, Cumbria – increased turnover by 35% from £17.4m the previous year to £23.56m. Operating profi t rose by 130% to £1.525m. The fi nancial year also ended with Grants winning two gold medals at the Italian-based International Food Taste Awards.
Also in January, Danish fi sh-processing equipment manufacturer KROMA AS acquired the fi sh and food industry element of its competitor, the Dansupply Automation Company.
KROMA said its investment in Dansupply Automation would give it access to Dansupply’s new conveyor system, which was already being used by Kroma’s target customer base.
Food-processing solutions business BAADER signed up as a key supplier for Quality Salmon, a major landbased fi sh farm and production site in Sweden. The park, operated by Quality Salmon Sotenäs AB, is under construction on the west coast of Sweden. When fully developed, it will operate on a 140-hectare land site producing up to 100,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon per year, with a feed factory, salmon farm and processing facilities. It was the start of a busy year for BAADER. In February, the group acquired SEAC AB, a Swedish fi sh-processing manufacturer. Robert Focke, Managing Director BAADER Fish, said: “Looking into the future and the compatible processing solutions of BAADER, the SEAC technology is a perfect fi t for BAADER to further extend our overall product portfolio also among small fi sh species.”
In March, we reported that BAADER had completed its acquisition of Icelandic competitor Skaginn 3X. The deal had been announced in October last year.
BAADER said it had taken a majority stake in Skaginn in order to combine its own manufacturing capability with Skaginn’s innovative cooling, freezing and processing expertise.
Petra Baader, Executive Chairwoman of BAADER, said: “Our overall mission is to be the one go-to partner for customers within the fi sh industry, as we have done for over 100 years.”
Logistics service provider Eurofrigo started the construction of a new coldstore on the Maasvlakte development, near Rotterdam.
Eurofrigo focuses on the transport and storage of veterinary products from all over the world. The new coldstore is the company’s sixth location in the Netherlands. It is located opposite the existing Eurofrigo facility in the Maasvlakte.
Also growing its business was Marel, the Iceland based fi sh and food processing supplier, which acquired a 40% stake in Stranda Prolog, a Norwegian supplier of salmon processing solutions.
Marel said the transaction was in line with its strategic objective to be a full-line supplier of advanced food-processing solutions and software to the fi sh, meat and poultry sectors.
In July, Marel struck a deal to acquire Valka ehf, a fi sh processing business also based in Iceland. Helgi Hjálmarsson, Valka’s founder and CEO, will take on a role as Director of Solution Integrity.
Guðbjörg Heiða Guðmundsdóttir, Executive Vice-President Marel Fish, said: “We are excited to join forces with Valka… together the companies will build on the best of both, increase scale, accelerate innovation and strengthen our combined off ering to continue to provide our customers with best-in-class processing solutions in the growing food-processing industry.”
In February, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority announced it was taking action to reduce the risk of listeria by carrying out a full inspection of all salmon slaughterhouses. The inspection programme was due to run until September with a full report expected by the end of 2021.
Petra Baader
Opposite from top: Robert Focke; Baader aquired SEAC This page from top: Guðbjö rg-HeiðaGuðmundsdó ttir and Helgi-Hjalmarsson; Petra Baader
In March, the Wm Morrison supermarket chain snapped up Cornish seafood fi rm Falfi sh, which supplies
more than 50 diff erent varieties of farmed and wild-caught seafood. This highly unusual move for a national retailer means that it is now the fi rst supermarket to own a working trawler. Morrisons, which also owns a large seafood-processing factory in Grimsby, said the acquisition would bring further improvements to its range and availability at its 497 fresh fi sh counters around the UK. Falfi sh operates from two sites in Redruth and Falmouth docks on the south Cornish coast. In April, salmon producer Mowi announced it was investing in an upgrade for its Blar Mhor processing facility in Fort William. The project will take the plant up to a capacity of more than 80,000 tonnes. The project is set for completion in the second half of 2022. Scott Nolan, Processing Development Manager for Mowi Scotland, has been promoted to the position of Processing Director to manage the project. Also in April, Fish Farmer reported on Loch Duart’s processing plant in Dingwall, a site that had been mothballed for some years under its previous ownership and which is now employing around 60 people. The move to set up its own processing capability has meant Loch Duart can take a much greater degree of control over the quality of its product. As Russell Leslie, General Manager at the plant, told us: “It’s about closing the circle, allowing us to take control of the process from egg to the customers and to add value.” The plant had previously been operated by the Edinburgh Salmon Company, but it was closed at the end of 2018. The site remained empty until 2020, when Loch Duart purchased it. In May, the export issue rolled on as Scottish seafood processors claimed they had been “let down” over promised support to counter the joint impacts of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. A £23m scheme pledged by the UK Government only represented half of the industry’s losses, said Jimmy Buchan, Chief Executive of the Scottish Seafood Association. He added: “The truth is that while the fi nancial support that has been forthcoming has been gratefully received, its partial nature means that businesses are being left in great diffi culties in their hour of greatest need.” In Norway, Bremnes Seashore – one of the country’s leading suppliers of farmed salmon – announced it was investing around NOK 400m (£35m) in a new large processing centre and coldstore. The development will cover an area of 14,000 square metres at the Bremnes Seashore factory at Kvednavikjo in the Bømlo municipality in the south west of the country. The coldstore will be built fi rst, but the entire project should be completed by the end of 2023, the company said. In June, we carried the news that Young’s, Britain’s largest seafood company, had been fi ned more than three quarters of a million pounds after a worker was trapped by a mixing machine at one of its Grimsby sites, losing his thumb and two fi ngers. Young’s, a major supplier of salmon and whitefi sh to retail and foodservice, pleaded guilty at
Grimsby Crown Court to breaching health and safety regulations. The company was fi ned £787,500 and ordered to pay £33,443.68 in costs. Meanwhile, Russian Aquaculture increased its stake in the Murmanskbased seafood processor Tri Ruchja and Murmanrybprom to 100%.
The group had previously owned 40% of the processor and has invested RUB 358.5m (£3.46m) to become sole owner. The Murmansk processing facility is capable of producing 30,000 metric tonnes of products annually and is fi tted with modern equipment for processing salmonids. Also on the acquisition trail that month was Iceland Seafood international (ISI), which signed a letter of intent to acquire an 80% stake in Spanish salmon processor Ahumados Dominguez, a retail-oriented business with a strong brand and consumer recognition in the smoked salmon sector in
Spain. The remaining 20% remained with Managing Director Pedro Mestanza.
In July, the UK Government’s Fisheries Minister, Victoria Prentis, said she was confi dent that Britain’s fi sh processing industry had “huge opportunities” in the years to come. She visited Immingham Border Control Post and two leading processors, Flatfi sh and Young’s Seafood, before hosting a virtual roundtable bringing together industry representatives from across the processing sector. In July and August, the UK and Scottish governments both addressed the seafood sector’s problems. In July, Scottish Rural Aff airs Secretary Mairi Gougeon paid a visit to processors Joseph Robertson in Aberdeen and announced funding of £1.8m to help seafood businesses sell to markets in the UK and overseas. The initiative was intended to help the sector recover from the twin impacts of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. In August, Prime Minister Boris
Opposite from top: The Blar Mhor team; Scott Nolan, Mowi This page from top: Mairi Gougeon (second from left) at Joseph Robertson; Ahumados Dominguez; Russian aquaculture, Murmansk; Bremnes Seashore facility (impression)
Johnson met in Aberdeen with representatives of the fi shing and fi sh processing industries in Scotland, including the Scottish Seafood Association and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. Discussions focused on the awkward topics of Brexit, Covid and national fi shing quotas. In September, we reported that Mowi had signed an agreement to sell its processing plant in Dunkirk in northern France. The subsidiary, formerly trading as Appéti’Marine, will be sold to French seafood group Sofi pêche. Mowi will continue to be a main supplier of salmon to Sofi pêche and the Dunkirk plant going forward. Meanwhile, Dawnfresh Seafoods announced plans to close its processing plant in Uddingston near Glasgow in 2022, and expand its site in Arbroath, Angus, on Scotland’s east coast. The 230 staff at the Uddingston plant were off ered a chance to move to Arbroath, with a relocation allowance. Raleigh Salvesen, Managing Director, Dawnfresh Seafoods, said: “This move is critical if we are to meet our objective of keeping seafood production jobs in Scotland… it will be sad to close our factory in Uddingston, but we are incentivising our team to join us on this journey and hope many of our experienced and skilled staff join us in Arbroath.” On a happier note, the Scottish Seafood Association elected Amber Knight, co-founder of MacNeil Shellfi sh, as its fi rst chairwoman. Amber Knight and her partner, Michael, launched
Opposite from top: PM Boris Johnson meets fishing industry; Premier pre-cooked mussels Left: Raleigh Salvesen, Dawnfresh
MacNeil Shellfi sh, which sells wild, creelcaught shellfi sh including crab, lobster and langoustine, in 2012. MacNeil exports live crustaceans to EU and global markets. In October, we reported that UK-based Off shore Shellfi sh and the Netherlands’ Krijn Verwijs Yerseke BV had teamed up to launch a joint venture promoting a new range of cooked mussel dishes under the Premier Off shore Brand. The owners said the new venture off ered “a new vision for rope-grown, pre-cooked mussels, which require just a few minutes in a pan or microwave to produce a restaurant -quality meal.” Also in October, Iceland Seafood International (ISI) reported that its revenue had shot up by 15% to €208.3m for the fi rst half of 2021, while pre-tax profi ts more than doubled to €4.8m. ISI said strong growth in southern Europe and Ireland had helped a good performance, especially once pandemic restrictions started to ease. In November, Scotland’s seafood sector launched a recruitment drive across radio and digital channels, to try to address staff shortages in the industry. The “Sea a Bright Future” campaign was the result of a collaboration between government agency Seafi sh and the Scottish Seafood Association. November also saw the announcement of a deal between cod farmer Norcod and aquaculture business Vesterålen Havbruk on harvesting. Vesterålen will handle all the farmed cod volumes from Norcod’s Frosvika facility in Meløy, in Nordland county, Norway, for the next three years. The arrangement covers slaughter and processing of cod at Vesterålen Havbruk’s fi sh-processing facility in Myre, Norway’s “cod capital”.
aquaculture business Vesterålen Havbruk
