Five salmon farmers are listed on the Santiago Stock Exchange.
With a total market value of just over USD1.8bn, only Oslo in Norway has more salmon on the stock market than the Chilean capital.
What AquaChile, Blumar, Camanchaca, Multiexport Foods and Invermar all have in common is that they are not exclusively engaged in salmon farming, but salmon is the most important part of their business.
In addition to this, the food retailer Agro Super, which owns the salmon farmer Los Fiordos, is listed on the Santiago exchange, but not included in the list below.
Diversified
Biggest of those mentioned is AquaChile, which slaughtered 40,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon in 2016. In addition comes tonnage from the Pacific lobster, coho and rainbow trout. AquaChile is also engaged in tilapia farming and has operations in three countries; Chile, Costa Rica and the United States.
Besides salmon farming, Blumar is also engaged in catching and processing fish. The company has a large production of canned sardines, as well as salt and dried anchovies. In addition, fish oil and flour are included, as well as frozen fish in the product portfolio.
Fisheries
Camanchaca is also originally a fishing company. In addition to 30,000 tonnes of salmon, they also sell shellfish and horse mackerel.
Invermar is the purest salmon breeder in this regard. The company also breeds coho and rainbow trout.
Multiexport Foods offers shellfish in addition to three species of salmonids. The company’s chairman is the salmon veteran José Ramón Gutierrez.
Demanding
The Chilean salmon industry is still quite young and has undergone “frenetic growth” since its inception in 1979. The last ten years have been demanding, not least because of the Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) outbreak that affected the industry in 2007-2008.
The industry’s volume growth has hit the roof in recent years, and earnings and share prices have begun to see cyclical fluctuations, as illustrated by market leader AquaChile’s fluctuations over the past five years.
