Umami Sustainable Seafood on Tuesday announced that its subsidiary Baja Aqua Farms has sold and delivered about USD 50 million work of bluefin tuna harvested at its Mexican facility.
The sales reflect a 38 percent increase from last year in the price paid per kilo of tuna.
Harvesting at Baja began in late August and finished last week. Harvesting at Kali Tuna, Umami’s Croatian operation, is planned to start in December and is projected to be substantially complete by early March 2012.
“The successful change in of Baja’s harvesting schedule is another example of why the merger of the Kali and Baja operation is beneficial. Umami can now offer its clients premium sashimi-grade Bluefin tuna eight months out of every year, instead of the previous three month window. It also means that Umami’s annual cash flows are stabilizing and the company will become less dependent on short term debt,” said Oli Steindorsson, chairman and CEO of Umami.
“In addition to the 38 percent rise in tuna prices this year as compared to last year, improvement in our operations and other factors have helped to improve our profit margin on sales contracts,” added Steindorsson. “We are especially pleased that our fish farming process has matured enough so that we are now able to shift and extend our harvest schedule in order to take maximum advantage of current market conditions.”
