Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
sea lions. Nearly 90% of the Chilean salmon farms had reported attacks by sea lions and
losses around USD140 million in 2009. Sea lion manages to cleave regular nets and avoid
acoustic harassment, alarm devices and fake killer whales. Nowadays predator nets are the
only effective method towards sea lion attacks (Oliva et al. 2003; Vilata et al. 2010).
The SW production have been spreading further south in Aysén region, where many
concessions have been granted in the past years and activities are starting far south in
Magallanes region. Today from 1063 concessions granted, 441 are in Los Lagos region, 572 in
Aysén region and 50 in Magallanes region, however, a nearly 15 times growth is expected by
2013. In the Southern hemisphere there are inverse seasons in respect to Northern hemisphere,
thus allowing the supply of fresh salmon during winter time in importing countries as USA
and Japan. During summer, the temperature in the sea ranges between 8
°
C and 18
°
C in Los
Lagos region, but in Aysén and Magallanes seldom reach up to 15
°
C. In addition, in winter
temperatures could reach down to 5
°
C but never around freezing point.
2.3.3 Salmonids processing
Chilean salmon farming processing technology has evolved from fully-manual systems to a
mixed semi-automated systems, where some phases of the system are automated and other
phases are carried out manually to ensure quality standards. Nevertheless, processing
facilities in Chile employ twice of the workers as equivalent facilities in competitor
countries, due to the labour costs. Thus, providing a comparative advantage in labour-
intensive activities such as the production of fillets and boneless portions of salmon. The
main salmon products are fresh and frozen fillets, loins and portions, but also smoked, and
marinated products are significant parts of production. There has been an increase in value-
added products obtained from salmon, mainly in Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. This
triggered by intense competition in the generic salmon market and prices trend in value-
added products. Each farming company has 2 to 4 major customers that define the product
range; however, very often these customers bring special equipment and procedures for
production of innovative products with the brand of these customers. The reaction to this
situation has been differentiation: creation of brands, greater variety in processing (fresh,
smoked, frozen, salted, canned salmon) production of related products (fresh or frozen fish
portions of specific weight and sizes to fill the specific requirements of clients, salmon cuts
designed to facilitate fish preparation and decrease waste, etc.), client labelling and
packaging for final consumption, and food traceability. These actions however, have
increased production costs (Perlman & Juárez-Rubio, 2010).
2.4 Chilean salmon market
In the late 1990s, the development of the industry was driven by market needs. The fall in
salmon prices on the international market in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to collapse of
the smaller companies and established a consolidated industrial aquaculture in salmon
producing countries such as Chile, Norway and Scotland. Consequently, the Chilean salmon
industry realised the risk of relying almost exclusively on two major markets; hence, a
group of 13 local companies formed Salmocorp in order to face existing markets and explore
new ones. Although this joint venture company operated only for three years, it certainly
contributed to opening up new markets. Despite the main markets of Chilean salmon have
traditionally been USA and Japan; in the last decade, new markets have been expanded to
Search WWH ::
Custom Search