Sapmer announced today it is building a new cold room facility to help follow the growth of its purse seiners’ catches in the French Southern and Antarctic territories.
The new facility, expected to be finished in March of 2013, will be based at Port-Louis in Maritius.
The company, which has a fleet of five purse-seine ships fishing skipjack and yellowfin, has already been operating a 1,800-metric-ton (MT), -40°C deep-freeze facility since February of 2011. The new 5,023-square-meter facility will allow the yearly processing of 21,000 MT of whole tuna of both types. By 2015, the company estimates to be employing 220 people at the site.
Along with existing units in Mauritius, the company expects the new facility to bump up annual production there to 30,000 MT.
