Naturix Aquaculture of Guadalajara, central Spain, is among the 11 innovative seafood companies selected to share EUR 21 million (USD 30 million) in funding from Spain’s Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs.
The Fund for the Support of Diversification in the Fish and Aquatic Sectors offers financial assistance for business diversification projects through participatory loans, long-term credit, temporary participation initiatives and minority capital with pre-negotiated exit agreements. It aims to create some 160 jobs from 11 original projects in fishing and aquaculture industries.
Naturix Aquaculture, which has raised rainbow trout and sturgeon in Castile-La Mancha for the past 50 years, will use the finding to expand its production to other species.
“Other new aquaculture products include the semi-extensive cultivation of sea bream, estuary sea bass, long-line open sea cultivation of oysters, fine clams and other products to be harvested especially for Andalucian fish markets,” said Mahmoud Lahlou, commercial director of Naturix.
The company, which was selected to promote “rural aquaculture,” uses ecological cultivation and respects flora and fauna, thanks to innovative systems which make good use of reduced water consumption to ensure sufficient production volumes throughout the year.
“Our policies are different to other businesses since our objective is to provide healthy, natural products of the highest quality — these are the three principles on which we base our product differentiation and we will dedicate our efforts to widen the contrast between ours and other seafood products,” said Lahlou. “Merchandising through ecological quality certificates will allow us to develop Denominations of Origin for our sister companies Trout from Alcarria and Estuary Fish from Cádiz Bay for different Spanish, German and Japanese markets.
“Our main objective is to export 80 percent of our products,” added Lahlou. “This will account for 100 tons of ecological trout byproducts and 100 tons of our newly diversified aquaculture to meet the growing market demand for quality ecological dietary products.”
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