According to Alliance Tuna International Inc. it will start producing smoked salmon as soon as it opens its new plant in General Santos City before the year ends. The company announced that the new plant, which costs between P50 million and P60 million, will boost the firm’s earnings in 2010. Alliance Tuna president Jonathan Dee has informed the media about this at the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Monday.
Dee explained that the processing plant will start in the second half of the year and the company plan to lease out the facilities soon. He added that the new plant is a part of investments agreed upon by its joint venture with Prime Foods New Zealand. It will produce two tons of salmon a day which will be sold to markets in Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan.
It is said that a new acquisition outside the “tuna and salmon” business may be completed in six to eight months. Dee informed that this will be a much bigger acquisition. He was unveiling the company’s plan to become a regional food conglomerate. Alliance Tuna’s plants are located in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand. Dee told that the company is currently looking for products that can bring more margins to the company. These are high-value products.
It is opined that Alliance Tuna is also looking to improve the capacity to its Indonesian subsidiary to reach its daily production target of 60 tons, starting with just ten tons of tuna daily to the US and the Middle East. Dee said that next month, the company will ship 20 tons per day until we hit the capacity.
