PERU'S Austral Group has recently diversified into canning tuna as one way of fighting the severe economic difficulties afflicting parts of the important South American fishing country, reports TOM WRAY.

The 137 ft. long and 1600 hp US tuna purse seiner Connie Jean was discharging a catch of frozen yellowfin and skipjack tuna during a recent FNI visit to Austral's huge fishmeal and fish canning plant in the northern fishing centre of Paita recently.

Owned by the A. A. Ferrante Fishing Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware, the vessel had been fishing in the Southeast Pacific off Central and South America for about 25 days. Her skipper said he had made several deliveries to Austral's canning plant over the last year.

Connie Jean , built by JM Martinac of Tacoma, Washington, USA, in 1966, fishes in an area assessed and managed by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC).

This commission applies a combined scheme of fishing effort controls, catch quotas and close seasons to regulate fishing in its area.

Together with IATTC, other regional organisations have been exploring alternatives to modify and expand the arrangements for the assessment and management of tunas and other highly migratory species in the wider eastern Pacific area.

Austral, one of Peru's biggest fishing companies, has two canning plants, the biggest in Paita and a smaller one in Coishco, strategically located along the north and central coasts of the country.

The two plants combined have one of the largest production capacities in the world for canned sardines, mackerel and tuna - 35,000 cases a shift. The plants work three shifts a day and canned sardines and mackerel are the main products.

Austral says that both its canning plants comply with international quality standards and work under a strict HACCP plan which allows the company to export to all major international markets.

The company has over 40 vessels to deliver fish to these canning plants, and to Austral's six meal plants from Paita, in the north, to Ilo, in the south, "Our fishing fleet is the largest and most modern in South America, " claims Roberto Gutierrez, Austral's operations manager.

"Average age of the fleet is four years and hold capacities range from 270 to 800 tonnes, with a combined capacity of 17,000 tonnes. A large part of our vessels are refrigerated, guaranteeing a fresh supply of fish to our plants."

The Austral Group is vertically integrated and even has a large can-making plant to service its two fish processing plants, as well as other producers of fish and products. Metalpack, Austral's can-making company, is one of the largest and most advanced plants of its type in Latin America.

A vital key to the production of high quality canned fish, which Austral says has "exquisite flavour and great acceptance in world markets, " is to use the freshest raw material delivered to the plants as physically undamaged as possible.

"First, our experienced fishing crews meticulously care for the raw material in refrigerated sea water holds which range from 400 to 870 ton per vessel, " Roberto Gutjierrez, Austral's operations manager, tells FNI .

"Another important contributing factor is the use of Transvac high-capacity vacuum pump systems, which deliver the fish damagefree directly from the vessels into the plants."

These same pumps, partly built in Peru by FIMA SA of Lima, also deliver anchovy and other species damage-free for reduction to fishmeal and oil.

Austral says that these vacuum pumps, together with the freshness of the raw material and advanced fishmeal manufacturing equipment, enables it to produce its VLT (Very Low Temperature) Aquagrade prime quality fishmeals.

Environmental Technologies Inc. , the US designer of Transvac and Silkstream pumps, says that its technology could also be used for the successful, damage-free, pumping of tuna as its systems already deliver large salmon and trout.

ETI adds that it has already run a successful test pumping frozen tuna up to 10 kg with a Transvac.

Austral packs its fish in brine or tomato sauce in cans of various sizes including tall (425 g), Austral pack (220 g), oval (425 g), 1/2 pound tuna (185/170 g) and 1/4 club (125 g). These are packed 24 to 100 cans per case, depending on size, and delivered "at competitive prices" in 20 or 40 ft. containers.

Main markets for Austral's canned fish products include locally, in other Latin American countries such as Columbia and Argentina, as well as in Europe and South Africa.

Austral's Paita canning plant is one of the largest fully automatic fish canning factories in the world, incorporating the latest technology, says the company which has invested huge sums in developing its business in recent years.

The combination of big investments, high interest rates, lack of fish as a result of El Nino and now, when there is again plenty of fish, poor prices for the end products, have caused Austral's present financial problems.

Austral is by no means alone in its plight, however, and much of the Peruvian fishing industry has a long, steep, hill to climb back to profitability.

News

Peru's top canner turning to tuna