With Marine Harvest growing new secondary processing plant in key, growing markets, word emerges that a new process plant for Shanghai is being considered.
The world’s largest salmon producer is opening processing plant in Shanghai aimed at bolstering processed capacity locally to 40,000 tonnes, a figure that appears in company literature.
“It’s too early to give any details,” head of Marine Harvest communications, Ola Helge Hjetland, told SalmonBusiness.
Undercurrent reported the plan, citing a chat with the CEO that yielded little detail.
If realised — and if not the Chinese plant expansion indicated in the company’s earnings reporting — Shanghai would breathe life into plans to start a series of restaurants and grow consumer offerings in China. In it’s Annual Report, company leadership suggested secondary processing expansion across the board, while pointing to existing plant at Hong Kong and at Zhongli, Taiwan.
Chinese demand
Marine Harvest has told investors that Chinese demand for salmon grew 7.3 percent in 2017 and now stands at 84,500 t. Imports from Norway to China have surged year-on-year to 3,295 t for January-February 2018 — ten-times more than a year ago.
“Consumption trends in the Asian market have been positive in 2017, and with the recent market access to China of Norwegian salmon, the Board expects that to continue,” a note to shareholders said, adding, “We have already experienced a double-digit growth of salmon supply into the Chinese market.”
Ready-to-serve
Extra plant would help the company realize plans to establish 2,000-plus Chinese seafood restaurants selling in short order. The Supreme Salmon eatery brand has been tested by Marine Harvest in Taiwan.
More Chinese processing is in-line with a company strategy to be more integrated with its own feed and more of its own secondary processing and downstream offerings, like restaurants and consumer products. To that end, secondary processing was expanded in 2017 with a new plant in Surrey B.C. and a major, 10,000-square-meter upgrade for Europe’s largest secondary, salmon-processing plant at Ustka, Poland.
The news report offered no detail of the new plant’s size, so it’s not known how the expanded Chinese capacity will compare to either Ustka, Bruges, Belgium; Rosyth, Scotland or two others at Boulogne and Landivisiau, France.
