Sea Harvest extends Australian footprint

Cape Town - Sea Harvest announced on Thursday that it has acquired a 19.9% investment in Perth-based company Mareterram Limited, which recently listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

According to a statement, Mareterram is a vertically integrated agri-business. Its operations currently encompass the business assets of Western Australian based Nor-West Seafoods, an MSC-certified fishing company that harvests and processes wild caught king and tiger prawns as well as scallops, and the business assets of the Craig Mostyn Group Food Service Division, an Australian business that markets and sells Sea Harvest’s hake products.

The Craig Mostyn Group, with revenues of Aus$420m, has distributed Sea Harvest’s products in Australia for the last 50 years.

Sea Harvest CEO Felix Ratheb said: "The investment in Mareterram allows Sea Harvest to diversify its earnings away from a single species hake resource and gives us a firm foothold to increase our market share and presence in Australia in a hard currency."

According to the chairperson of Sea Harvest and Brimstone Investment Corporation, Fred Robertson, the Mareterram strategy, which is very much aligned to that of Sea Harvest, centres on using a platform of wild caught, MSC-certified seafood to build a broader-based food business.