Puerto Natales, Chile-based salmon producer AquaChile has officially opened a new processing plant and employee administrative office building.
Construction on the project began in January 2022, and the finished structure is approximately 1,800 square meters. AquaChile employs more than 600 people, with around 430 planned to operate out of the new facility, the company said in a release.
“Every company in the world tends today to maximize its income by thinking about the productive sphere, and it is very interesting that here in Puerto Natales, the initial project to work in this place is thinking about the workers,” Magallanes Regional Governor Jorge Flies said.
The new facility follows AgroSuper acquiring a 67 percent share in AquaChile in August 2018 for USD 850 million (EUR 736.4 million), which also gave it control of AquaChile subsidiaries Los Fiordos, Friosur, and Salmones Magallanes.
In an interview with the Chilean business journal Economia y Negocios, then AgroSuper CEO Jose Guzmán said the integration process for all of AgroSuper's new brands will take time.
"I estimate it will take us at least three years to build a single company in all – brands, customer network, production systems, information systems, equipment, etc.," Guzmán said in 2019. "We need three years to look inside and see how to make this company more efficient, which is our goal."
AgroSuper said in a release last week that the operations of the firms it controls will now be organized under the AquaChile name – making it the second-largest farmed salmon company in the world with around 350 farming concessions in four regions of Chile and total salmon production of more than 200,000 metric tons whole fish equivalent. The expanded production made the new facility even more essential, the company said.
"At AquaChile, we are proud to be part of the Magallanes community and to contribute to its development. We wanted to invest so that our collaborators had the best possible standard in this service building," AquaChile General Manager Sady Delgado said. "We want to continue being part of the future and development of Magallanes."
Photo courtesy of AquaChile
