The company's management team visits the facilities of the new Blumar Magallanes Plant, which will process fillets and whole salmon, both fresh and frozen.
Photo: Blumar.
Chile's Blumar announced that its new Blumar Magallanes Plant has started operations. For its start-up, the Chilean salmon company has made an investment close to CLP 1 billion (EUR 974 thousand / USD 1 million) in a facility that it leases, manages, and operates, and which has a maximum monthly processing capacity of 3,960 tons. Thus the salmon produced by the company in the Magallanes region will also be processed there.
"This is a very important milestone, as it will allow us to operate efficiently in Magallanes and contribute again to regional employment, which was strongly impacted after the unfortunate fire at Entrevientos," said Fernanda Taboada, Blumar's Process Manager, who is leading the start-up of the new plant.
"We hope that in full operation we can have 450 workers, many of them former employees of the plant that was destroyed and with whom we have a firm commitment," she added.
When five months ago, in February, a fire razed the Entrevientos plant, which Blumar operated jointly with MultiX, although the incident did not cause any personal injury, 760 workers were left unemployed after the facilities were declared a total loss.
They were the most modern not just in Chile but in Latin America and had involved an investment of more than USD 70 million (EUR 64.4 million / CLP 66.6 billion).
Given the force majeure causes that led to the plant closure, the 50/50 owners Blumar and Multi X compensated the workers beyond what is required by law and designed a plan to guarantee the financial stability of the employees and their families by defining voluntary severance payments.
The recovery of the jobs was not immediately possible, but the company had already shown its commitment to the workers and the Magallanes region.
"We intend to build the plant again and hopefully the workers who are here with us today will want to be part of the company again," Cristián Swett, Entrevientos Chairman of the Board, announced then.
After the incident, Blumar was left without processing capacity in the Magallanes region and had to temporarily transport live salmon production by ship to Chiloé for primary processing and then by truck to Talcahuano for secondary processing.
However, at the same time, it began to design different plans that would allow it to continue operating in the region, giving priority to alternatives that would maintain employment and local development. The solution to the problem has now arrived with the start-up of the Blumar Magallanes Plant.
"We have a commitment to this region, which has great potential for development around salmon, and for this reason, we are working hard to resume the process in Punta Arenas as soon as possible, which has meant a great effort for the company," said Blumar's General Manager, Gerardo Balbontín.
The new Blumar Magallanes Plant will process fillets and whole salmon, fresh and frozen, which will allow the company to continue supplying the Chilean domestic market as well as international markets with Magellanic salmon, which currently represents a third of the company's production.