Spanish tuna company Balfegó is beginning a marketing push in the U.S. as its new processing and office facility enables it to increase its supply of products.
Balfegó opened its new facility in 2025, and has since expanded its company to 350 employees. Balfegó Marketing Manager Laia Ortiz Radua told SeafoodSource during Seafood Expo North America (SENA) – which ran from 15 to 17 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. – that the new facility has opened up new avenues for sales.
“The idea is to use the new facilities to start creating new products,” Radua said. “In Spain, we’re going to launch new products next week.”
Many of those products are tailored to the foodservice market and have been designed to reduce the labor it takes to present a high-quality tuna product to the market.
Radua said the company is also working to launch a new super-frozen range of products, capitalizing on the new facility’s innovative facilities and capabilities.
As it begins to launch new product, Balfego is in the planning stages of its marketing strategy for its next fiscal year. The U.S. is a central part of that, Radua said.
“We want to make our branding more known in the U.S.,” she said.
At SENA, the company began that marketing effort with a Kaitai Show, featuring a whole tuna cutting experience in the event’s Wavemakers Zone featuring a 500-pound tuna.
“This was like a declaration of intentions,” Radua said. “We are here, we are the one and only, and we are here to be the highlight of the tuna market in the U.S.”
Radua said the company has achieved a lot of its branding goals already in Spain and Europe, and it now wants to achieve those goals in the U.S.
“The U.S. will have its own marketing strategy, and this never happened before because we were focusing our strengths in Europe,” she said.
The company already has gastronomic events in the U.S. on its calendar, and it is also working to be in the press and social media.
“We have to create this strong brand so people will keep preferring our tuna to other brands of tuna, even if it is a little bit expensive,” Radua said.
Another part of that branding is to emphasize the work the company has done to earn sustainability credentials, such as GSSI recognition and becoming a certified B corp.
“We are not communicating that in the U.S. market, and if you don’t communicate you don’t exist,” Radua said.
The next year will see Balfego emphasizing those sustainability credentials, the work it has done to be a responsible corporation, and the high quality of its product as a way to solidify the brand in U.S. consumer’s minds as one worth paying for.
“We are expensive, and we want to continue being that,” Radua said. “When you say bluefin tuna, you should automatically think about Balfego.”
