Wayzata, Minnesota, U.S.A-based animal nutrition company Cargill and its Ecuadorian partner, shrimp farmer Naturisa, have agreed to form a joint venture with Ecuador’s Skyvest EC Holding that is expected to lead to a doubling of Cargill's shrimp feed producing capacity in the South American country.
Under the agreement, Cargill will look to expand its shrimp-feed production capabilities by owning and operating a 156,000-metric-ton (MT) capacity shrimp-feed production facility located in Guayaquil, Ecuador, which is currently owned by Skyvest’s subsidiary Empagran.
Financial details of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the coming months, were not disclosed.
Cargill originally entered the Ecuadorian market in 2015, when it signed a JV with Naturisa to build a USD 30 million (EUR 30 million) shrimp feed facility in the country, with capacity to produce 130,000 MT of feed per year, at the time positioning the firm to become one of the largest producers of shrimp feed in Latin America. Under that JV, Cargill would own 75 percent of the new facility, dubbed Aquacargill del Ecuador, and Naturisa the remaining 25 percent.
“Since that time, the Ecuadorian shrimp farming industry has continued to grow, and there is a need to meet the increased demand for high-quality feed,” Cargill President of Aqua Nutrition Business Helene Ziv-Douki said.
The idea is to expand the shrimp feed offering under Cargill’s Aquaxcel brand to meet increasing demand, Ziv-Douki said.
Naturisa President Francisco Sola said his company's JV with Cargill has thus far been profitable.
“Our joint venture with Cargill has been a big success and a driver of growth for both organizations. We have established an excellent working relationship and we are excited to participate in this expansion to increase our production capacity of high-performance feed that will continue supporting the growth of the Ecuadorian shrimp industry,” he said.
Cargill has 155,000 employees in 70 countries, serving food, agriculture, financial and industrial customers in more than 125 countries. Naturisa, founded in 1980, has more than 7,500 hectares producing whiteleg shrimp. It has five larviculture laboratories and, since 2016, owns 25 percent of Aquacargill shares.
Empagran, begun in 1975, has a fully integrated shrimp operation, including a hatchery, 2,100 hectares of shrimp farms, a feed mill and a processing plant, as well as a packing facility in Cartagena, Colombia.
Ecuador’s push to implement technology to drive efficiency while focusing on sustainable production may lead it to become the world's biggest shrimp producer as soon as 2023, Allan Cooper, director of business and value creation at Lima, Peru-based aquafeed company Vitapro, said at the annual IFFO - The Marine Ingredients Organization Conference in October. Worldwide, shrimp production from aquaculture is estimated to hit 2.18 million MT this year.
Photo courtesy of Mike Mareen/Shutterstock
