One week after purchasing a 100 percent interest in Mainstream Scotland from Cermaq ASA, Morpol ASA on Wednesday announced that it acquired Westray Scotland Ltd., an organic salmon farmer based in Orkney, Scotland, for GBP 3.28 million (USD 5.06 million, EUR 4.01 million) in cash.
The Ustka, Poland-based company will merge Westray’s assets with Mainstream’s. Last week’s acquisition of Mainstream was Morpol’s first step into salmon farming. The company is already one of the world’s largest salmon processors.
Westray possesses five farming licenses, with a total capacity of approximately 2,800 metric tons. In 2010, the operation expects to produce approximately 500 metric tons. However, Morpol will use only three of the five licenses, with a total capacity of 2,500 metric tons. “The other two licenses [are] too small to be economically viable at this stage,” said the company.
With the acquisition of Westray, Morpol expects to add 1,400 metric tons of salmon to Mainstream’s production by 2012.
With a 2009 revenue of approximately EUR 340 million, Morpol employs more than 3,000 people in eight countries and distributes its products across Europe, Japan and the United States. Its main products are cold and hot smoked salmon, gravadlax, fresh salmon fillets, frozen salmon portions, organic salmon, wild salmon and salmon specialties.
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