Teaming up and working together has paid off for Reunion Réunimer, a group of seafood companies based on La Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar.
Réunimer is comprised of five companies: Enez Peche, Reunipeche, Reunion Pelagique, Le Martin Pecheur, and Le Pecheur Creole. The companies operate across Madagascar, La Réunion, and the surrounding island territories in the Southern Indian Ocean.
The group has grown its annual sales to EUR 31 million (USD 32.6 million), with EUR 20 million (USD 21 million) of that total coming from Réunion Pelagique, up from EUR 3 million (USD 3.2 million) a decade ago, according to Reunion Pelagique Import-Export Specialist Thomas Millot. It operates 14 fishing boats and several processing facilities, collectively producing upward of 1,000 metric tons (MT) annually.
Most of the company’s seafood products, which include tuna, swordfish, marlin, and sea bream, are sent to France, where they receive a premium because of the islands’ positive reputation there, Millot said. La Réunion is appreciated as an exotic tourist destination in France.
“As we become more well-known, the business is going only up,” he told SeafoodSource at the 2022 Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona, Spain, where the companies were exhibiting. “We want to develop more activity with new customers, and we are also doing more importing.”
Products Réunimer is now importing into La Réunion include salmon, cod, and shrimp.
Millot said Réunimer has grown quickly as a result of successful teamwork between the participating companies and the synergies gained by combining forces.
“Once we brought companies together and organized our activities so that we could work together collaboratively, we have formed a strong partnership,” he said. “Before, each companies wore a lot of hats, but now each company can focus on its specialty, which has helped with the quality of product and of services.”
Photo courtesy of Cliff White/SeafoodSource
