Chilean salmon-farming firm Multi X closed the third quarter of 2024 with a significant drop in revenue, which the company said was due to low average harvest weights and weak market prices.
The firm’s average harvest weight of Atlantic salmon reached 4.94 kilograms during the third quarter of 2024, compared to 5.28 kilograms in the same quarter last year.
In the U.S., which is the company’s main market, Multi X said average sales prices dropped from USD 5.73 (EUR 5.44) per pound in Q3 2023 to USD 5.49 (EUR 5.21) per pound in the same quarter of 2024 due to weak demand as consumers opted for cheaper protein options.
The firm’s Q3 harvest volume totaled 25,509 metric tons (MT) whole fish equivalent (WFE) – down 19 percent when compared to the same quarter last year – while volume sold was down 27 percent to 25,781 MT WFE.
Correspondingly, Multi X’s Q3 revenues fell 27 percent to USD 189 million (EUR 179 million), compared to USD 258 million (EUR 245 million) posted in Q3 2023. Operational EBIT reached USD 5.4 million (EUR 5.1 million), which was 59 percent lower than the USD 13.3 million (EUR 12.6 million) in the same quarter of the previous year. The firm attributed this heavy drop mainly to higher production costs, as well as the aforementioned lower sales volumes and prices.
Those higher production costs included total Atlantic salmon costs for the quarter which reached USD 6.24 (EUR 5.93) per kilogram WFE, which was higher compared to USD 6.10 (EUR 5.79) from the third quarter of 2023.
Multi X did, however, bring ex-farm costs down to USD 4.84 (EUR 4.60) per kilogram WFE, decreasing 3.1 percent compared to the previous quarter despite lower harvest weight and higher mortality rates during the quarter.
Multi X sold 12,590 MT WFE of fillets in Q3, representing 49 percent of total sales, followed by 9,354 MT WFE of head-on, gutted (HON) fish, making up 36 percent of the total, and then 3,973 MT WFE of custom processed (CP) products, making up 15 percent of total sales. During the quarter, 97.1 percent of its sold products were considered premium, it said.
Due to all of these factors, the firm reported …
