Bantry Bay Seafoods casts its nets in Chilean waters

BANTRY Bay Seafoods has announced a €4 million joint venture investment in Chile as part of major drive for global domination in the mussel sector.

The award-winning shellfish producer has formed Blue Shell in partnership with Spanish group Mascato. Under the terms of the deal Bantry Bay Seafoods will have the major shareholding in the business. It will create 200 jobs within three years and process 19,000 tonnes of mussels annually. That is over 20% of the current annual Chilean production in that category of seafood.

The new plant on Chiloe Island will be built close to already established sea farms and that will be integral to the new project.

The company is number one mussel company in Europe and, with Chile on board, it aims to become the leading processor and supplier of top quality branded mussel products in the world, said sales and marketing director Denis Minihane. “It will extend our range of product offerings in the food ingredients sector. In addition, it will enable us to capture a very valuable share of the well-established half-shell market and the mussel meat market, currently dominated by New Zealand and Denmark. The investment coupled with the investment in our Irish plant and farms will have significant benefits for Bantry Bay Seafoods as a company.”

Founded in 1990, Bantry Bay Seafoods employs 120 full-time staff in a purpose built manufacturing facility in Bantry, Co Cork. The award winning company has patented an innovative method for processing shellfish and the employees at Bantry Bay Seafood have extensive expertise in the areas of product research and development, product innovation, marketing, planning and production.

The company produces over 6,000 tonnes of mussels annually.