Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada-based Cooke Inc. has completed its acquisition of a Latin American shrimp farming firm, giving it another species to add to its product line.
Cooke Vice President of Communications and Public Relations Joel Richardson confirmed to SeafoodSource the acquisition is complete, declining to name the firm but saying the company farms organic white Pacific shrimp. Richardson demurred when asked whether the acquisition target is the Seajoy Group, one of Latin America’s largest producers of farmed shrimp, with operations in Ecuador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
“We are hoping to make an official announcement before Christmas,” Richardson said. “The acquisition was completed in November, we just need to finalize some additional details before we announce it.”
Details on the financials of the acquisition will likely not be released, as both companies are private, Richardson said.
The Seajoy Group has almost 3,500 hectares, or 8,650 acres, of Pacific white shrimp farms, according to the company. A majority of the shrimp it sells has some kind of added value, from peeled deveined to butterfly to cooked shrimp and skewers. In addition, the company operates a 6,000-square-meter processing plant in Choluteca, Honduras, capable of producing 100,000 pounds of finished product daily, and has cold storage capacity of of up to one million lbs of finished product.
Earlier this week, Cooke CEO Glenn Cooke said at a round-table meeting with company executives, “We have basically bought one of the world’s largest shrimp operations,” according to New Brunswick’s Telegraph-Journal.
Cooke said the new company will fall under Cooke Aquaculture's Chile division.
Cooke said in recent years he has begun to look outside of Canada for acquisitions due to limits on expanding its fishing quotas and farming operations inside the country. The future of the company is focused on adding value to the firm’s products, on offering more species, and on getting closer to its customers, Cooke said, the Telegraph-Journal reported.
The new acquisition falls in line with that strategy as it will add shrimp to Cooke’s product line, Richardson said. Following the acquisition, Cooke will be able to offer 17 core species, he said.
“And it is a natural fit because the company is very focused on sustainability and environmental certification, and that’s a big focus area for Cooke as well,” he said.
The purchase will bring Cooke’s global employee count to 9,000 and its annual revenues to CAD 2.4 billion (USD 1.8 billion, EUR 1.6 billion), Richardson said. It will also raise total company production above one billion pounds of farmed and wild seafood per year.
Glenn Cooke told the Telegraph-Journal that despite his firm’s international expansion, he remains committed to growing the company’s operations in the New Brunswick area.
"We want to build an Atlantic Canada-based powerhouse that can compete with the largest global, publicly-traded seafood companies out there," Cooke said.
