Morpol ASA on Friday further strengthened its position in the smoked salmon market, acquiring a 100 percent interest in Brookside Products Ltd., a Cumbria, UK-based smoked salmon producer, for GBP 1 million (USD 1.6 million, EUR 1.2 million).
This is the Ustka, Poland-based salmon processor’s fourth acquisition in the past two month.
Last month, Morpol purchased Mainstream Scotland from Cermaq ASA — its first step into salmon farming — followed by Orkney, Scotland-based organic salmon farmers Westray Scotland Ltd. and Rysa Salmon.
Brookside has an annual production capacity of about 1,500 metric tons of finished product and controls roughly 10 percent of the UK smoked salmon market. The company is expected to post 2010 sales of GBP 12 million (USD 18.9 million, EUR 14.1 million).
Brookside holds the contract to supply John West and British retailer The Co-operative Group with private-label smoked salmon.
“Through the combination of recent farming acquisitions in Scotland and this important step into smoked salmon processing within the UK, we now have an excellent base where we can further penetrate not only the UK market but also other European markets,” said Morpol CEO Jerzy Malek.
