Christian Molinari

Christian Molinari

Contributing Editor reporting from Santiago, Chile

A native of San Francisco, Christian Molinari has lived and worked in Chile for over 20 years, after having arrived in Santiago as a volunteer and falling in love with the culture and its people. He covered business news in Latin America for over a decade, worked in communications at IBM Chile, and currently freelances in strategic communications and reporting.


Author Archive

Published on
September 10, 2024

Ecuador’s aquaculture, fishing, and agricultural sectors suffered around 900 extortion attempts in just 45 days, the Ecuadorian National Aquaculture Chamber (CNA) recently reported.

About 20 extortion alert calls a day were placed along Ecuador’s coast between 15 July and 31 August, the CNA said, but 75 percent of those cases were not handed to a prosecutor’s office. As a result, authorities did not initiate a formal complaint

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Published on
September 10, 2024
Cermaq Chile recently launched its ultra-premium Aimon brand of salmon products at the Japan House cultural center in the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo. The name of the brand and the venue where the launch took place are both a nod to Japanese culture. Cermaq’s parent company is Japanese… Read More
Published on
September 9, 2024

Puerto Montt, Chile-based salmon-farming firm Multi X saw its financial performance dip in the second quarter of 2024 as lower harvests and sales took a toll on revenues.

Multi X’s revenues were down 16 percent in Q2 2024 to USD 175 million (EUR 158 million) from USD 207 million (EUR 187 million) in the same quarter of 2023. The firm’s EBITDA fell 31 percent year over year to USD 15.6 million (EUR 14.1 million), while net losses

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Published on
September 9, 2024
Chile’s Investigative Police (PDI) have arrested 11 members of a criminal organization that, in March, robbed multiple truckloads of salmon destined for export, according to local press reports. The thieves, armed with firearms, assaulted a refrigerated warehouse and threatened its workers… Read More
Published on
September 6, 2024
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.-based nonprofit Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) has certified all of Cermaq Chile’s salmon-farming operations in the southern Magallanes region. The certification represents the first HFAC venture into salmon farming and acknowledges that the company integrates animal… Read More
Published on
September 4, 2024

Financially challenged Chilean salmon-farming firm Nova Austral continued to post losses in the second quarter of 2024, following a trend of several quarters of losses that was briefly interrupted in Q1 when the company turned a net profit of USD 400,000 (EUR 362,000).

During the second quarter of the year, Nova Austral’s top-line revenues reached USD 13.8 million (EUR 12.5 million), a 53 percent drop when compared to the USD 29.4 million

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Published on
September 4, 2024

An algae bloom and a fire at one of its processing plants negatively affected Chilean salmon farmer and fishing firm Blumar’s results during the first half of 2024.

An algae bloom at the beginning of the year at Blumar’s Victoria and Chivato I grow-out centers, located in the southern Aysén region, reduced projected harvests by more than 4,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon, the company said in its first half results. Meanwhile,

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Published on
August 29, 2024

Ambiguous and stringent regulations, as well as changing market preferences for fresh food products, have made Chile less competitive as a salmon-producing nation compared to other countries such as Norway, according to Mowi Chile CEO Fernando Villarroel.

Regulation of Chile’s salmon industry is often complex and strict, he told El Mercurio, which has limited the sector's growth and created a perception that the government does not favor

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Published on
August 29, 2024

According to the latest annual report from Brazilian fish-farming association Peixe BR on Brazil’s fish output, the South American country produced 887,029 metric tons (MT) of farmed fish in 2023, marking a 3.1 percent jump from 2022 and surging 53.2 percent from the 578,800 MT produced 10 years ago.

Farmed tilapia took up 65.3 percent of total production, reaching 579,080 MT, followed by native species such as tambaqui and pirarucu coming

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Published on
August 28, 2024

Ecuador’s shrimp exports reached 236 million pounds in June 2024, slipping almost 2 percent from the 241 million pounds exported in the same month of 2023 and marking a significant difference from the record-setting 275 million pounds of shrimp the country exported in May 2024.

The value of those exports reached USD 524 million (EUR 469 million) in June, falling 8.2 percent from the USD 571 million (EUR 510 million) registered in the same

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