Chilean salmon farmer Multiexport Foods’ land-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) being built in the Pargua sector, Los Lagos region, is expected to produce more than four million post-smolts of up to 500 grams in its first stage.
The RAS hatchery, dubbed Multisea, is being developed under a 50-50 joint venture with Sealand Aquaculture, which is currently the Chilean firm’s largest smolt supplier. Multisea’s first expected production is slated for the third quarter of 2022 with capacity at 2,000 metric tons per year, equivalent to 6.5 million smolts between 170 and 500 grams, Salmonexpert reported.
Through the project, Multiexport is looking to provide smolts to its operation in the Magallanes region, in addition to having larger smolts to minimize the risk in seawater and reducing its dependence on third-parties in the supply of smolts.
"This technology will make it possible to shorten the cultivation cycles in seawater and initiate the development of the hybrid salmon-farming concept, as well as take the first steps in land-based farming technology," Multiexport Foods Executive President José Ramón Gutiérrez said in the company’s 2020 report.
According to Gutiérrez, the project is “the most-modern fish farm of its kind in Latin America and one of the largest in the world for the production of Atlantic salmon post-smolts.”
For the financing of the project, a total USD 26 million (EUR 21.8 million) will be taken as debt, with another USD 10 million (EUR 8.4 million) in direct investment.
Founded in 1987, Puerto Montt-based Multiexport Foods has more than 2,400 employees and handles some 100,000 metric tons of salmon a year, with expectations to increase this to 125,000 metric tons by 2023. It has productive activities in southern Chile’s Regions IX, X, XI, and XII and is present throughout the salmon production chain, from reproduction to distribution to the final customer in more than 30 countries.
