Vigo, Spain-based Profand Fishing Holding has released its 2021 sales and earnings, showing the company exceeded EUR 800 million (USD 820 million) in turnover for the first time.
The total represents 20 percent year-over-year growth, according to a 19 July statement from the family-owned company. It said it reached EUR 74 million (USD 75.7 million) in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).
Grupo Profand – which includes both Profand Fishing Holding and Dutch subsidiary IMV – is a major supplier of Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona. It operates 24 fishing vessels, 14 seafood-processing facilities, and seven aquaculture facilities across 10 countries on five continents. It describes itself as a world leader in cephalopods, but said recent investments into the company from private shareholders, including a EUR 100 million (USD 118.1 million at the time) influx from the Madrid, Spain-based Corporación Financiera Alba in September 2021, have allowed it to expand.
In 2018, Profand acquired Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Stavis Seafood, and in 2019, it bought seafood processor and distributor Caladero and North Kingstown, Rhode Island, U.S.A.-based Seafreeze. Those acquisitions were followed up in 2021 with Profand’s purchase of Kefalonia Fisheries, a sea bream and sea bass farming operation based in Lixouri, Greece. In its statement, Profand said it had recently purchased two new vessels in the U.S. fishing sector, but did not specify the fishery they operate in. The company said the United States has “become one of the main benchmarks for the group, where this year [it] continues to grow strongly.”
“In the last decade, Profand has grown nationally and internationally in a sustained manner, developing new products and solutions, opening new markets and making relevant investments, always under the highest standards of corporate social responsibility, sustainability of fishing resources, quality of production and service to the client,” Profand said.
Profand said it will be investing EUR 20 million (USD 20.49 million) in upgrades to its processing facilities in Zaragoza, Spain; and Vilagarcia, Spain as part of a continued “bet on its vertical integration and its industrial model.”
The Alba investment “accelerated its investment in diversification, both geographically and in terms of species and sales formats started a few years ago,” Profand said.
However, Profand said higher costs for raw materials, packaging, freight, labor, and energy negatively impacted its results in the second half of 2021 and will continue throughout 2022, “causing a greater contraction in margins.”
Photo courtesy of Grupo Profand
