In the picture is the first shipment of Chilean salmon exported to Australia last November. In 2024, Camanchaca's salmon division reported USD 51 million.
Photo: Camanchaca.
In April last year, we reported that, after a challenging year for salmon farming, the fishing division had helped save Camanchaca's revenues in 2023. It was a slight growth of 5% which, however, was not enough to turn its profit positive. Now, in reporting its consolidated financial statements for 2024, the company said that the recovery of the salmon division has managed to reverse the trend, enabling the Chilean seafood company to close the year upwards.
In 2024, Camanchaca recorded total revenues of USD 813 million, this is an increase of 7% over the previous year. As said, this rise is mainly driven by the growth of its salmon division, which, according to consolidated figures, grew by 12% to USD 471 million.
Revenues from the fishing division amounted to USD 307 million. Although the results are similar to those of 2023, in the fiscal year 2024, there was a greater catch of jack mackerel, which compensated for the weak season for the purchase of artisanal sardine. In addition, there was a significant recovery of fishing activity in the northern zone, although still below historical standards.
Thus, thanks to higher sales of salmon and frozen jack mackerel, EBITDA increased by 18% over last year to USD 106 million. Of this, more than half, 53%, came from the fishing division, which reached USD 56 million, while the salmon division reported USD 51 million; this is 45.7% more than the USD 35 million recorded in 2023.
At year-end 2024, the accumulated after-tax result of the Chilean company - which also reported a significant reduction in indebtedness - was a profit of USD 22 million, quadrupling the USD 5.4 million of 2023.
Regarding the fishing division, Camanchaca said that its own and third-party pelagic catches processed in the company's plants in 2024 reached 289 thousand tons, a 10% increase over the 264 thousand processed the previous year.
In terms of catches, affected by El Niño lags and industrial catch limitations within 5 miles, in the north, anchovy catches were lower than their historical levels. However, as mentioned above, this was compensated by the high presence of jack mackerel and mackerel, which allowed catches of 49 thousand tons in 2024, 16 thousand more than in 2023.
Also in the northern zone, and also concentrated in jack mackerel and mackerel, purchases from artisanal fishermen reached 44 thousand tons, more than triple those of the previous year. Thus, with everything added together, the total catches processed in the north were 94 thousand tons, double that of the previous year.
In the central-southern zone, jack mackerel catches increased by 21% to 144 thousand tons, including international quota purchases of 50 thousand tons. Production of frozen jack mackerel was 35% higher than in 2023 - 108 million kilos - while sales increased by 22%, reaching a value of USD 102 million. The price per ton also increased, reaching USD 987/ton, 4% higher.
As a result of the lower availability of the resource during the season, the purchase of sardine-anchovy and other pelagic fish from artisanal fishermen in the central-southern zone fell by 58% to 36 thousand tons. These catches also caused a drop in fish oil yield from 8.2% in 2023 to 6.0% in 2024, and, added to the 17% drop in its price to USD 3,962/ton, this generated a triple impact on the income from this product: quantity, yield and price, which, Camanchaca said, explains the weak results associated with the production of fishmeal and fish oil.
As mentioned above, after a challenging 2023 in which prices fell while production costs increased, the trend changed in 2024. Although the context of low prices continued with a -6% drop for Atlantic salmon and -17% for Coho salmon, the higher sales volumes - +15% for Atlantic and more than double for Coho - managed to compensate it by reversing the trend and growing by the aforementioned 12%.
Last year, Atlantic harvests were 8% higher than in 2023, reaching 48 thousand tons WFE (Whole Fish Equivalent). The average price sold in 2024 was USD 7.79/Kg WFE, 6% lower, with a volume sold of 46 thousand tons WFE, 15% higher than the same period last year. In the case of Coho, the price was USD 5.36/Kg WFE, 17% lower, with a volume sold of 11 thousand tons WFE, more than double that of the previous year.
The cost of Atlantic harvested (ex-cage, live fish) was USD 4.38/kg live fish, lower than the USD 4.60/kg in 2023, and there were USD 0.8 million in extraordinary mortalities versus USD 3.6 million in 2023, with survival rates higher than those recorded in the industry. Additionally, the total process cost reached USD 1.08/Kg WFE, lower than the USD 1.14/Kg WFE in 2023.
Regarding other farming, Camanchaca noted that as early as January 2025, the company's Board of Directors decided to close the abalone business in the Atacama Region due to the unfavorable outlook for Chile's competitiveness in this seafood-farmed product.
Weak demand, high costs, and a significant increase in the supply of Chinese products led them to take this decision, which had a negative effect of a USD 4.9 million after-tax loss due to asset impairment and elimination of undersized biomass.
Making the necessary adjustments to ensure the sustainability of the business in the farming division is one of the backbones that Ricardo García Holtz, General Manager of Camanchaca, has identified as the five pillars behind the positive results achieved by Camanchaca in 2024.
Maintaining "healthy profitability" in fisheries and salmon recovering from a bad 2023 exercise, supporting areas contributing efficiently, getting the maximum added value out of its raw materials, and supporting its environment for harmonious development are the remaining four pillars.
"The global seafood industry has a series of challenges, the main one of which is to produce more for a growing population that must include more seafood products, the only way to reduce the pressure of emissions. Camanchaca is prepared to respond to this challenge, provided that the regulatory conditions do not pose obstacles and hinder as they do today in Chile. Our focus on quality, efficiency, and scale is paying off, and the 2024 numbers prove it," said García Holtz.
Camanchaca's General Manager took advantage of his assessment of the company's results in 2024 to warn about what the company called "extraordinary threats in Chile," referring to the new Fisheries Law whose debate continues in the country's Senate.
"The serious affectation to private property and legal certainty behind the fishing fractionation bill is dynamite on the spirit of the companies that want to give progress in Chile," he said.
"The future of fishing is being defined in the fractionation bill being discussed in the Senate and, if approved as it is, it will have very serious repercussions on the activity and employment in the sector and will force us to sue the State for expropriating without compensation and without there being public interest, but only an ideological political impulse," Ricardo García Holtz concluded.
