Chef cutting fresh tuna fish in the kitchen.
Photo by: Adobe Stock.
Indian seafood group Captain Fresh has acquired 100% of Spanish seafood processor and wholesaler Frime, which according to the company is currently leader in the sale of MSC-certified tuna in Europe, with a volume of 37,000 MT per year.
The deal, which was first reported in local news outlets this week, including El Economista, was cleared on 9 December by Spain’s competition authority, the CNMC, which approved the deal at the first phase without conditions. The transaction gives Captain Fresh sole control of the Catalonia-headquartered company.
Frime was founded in 1977 but traces its origins back to 1937 when Jesús Ramon Gómez, the grandfather of current managing director Salvador Ramon Mateo, opened a small fish stall in the famous Barcelona market La Boqueria.
In 1996, the family-owned company began exporting tuna to Japan, developing its own technology "inspired by the tuna defrosting and freezing techniques in Japan," according to its website. In subsequent years it opened a series of tuna processing plants and R&D facilities in Catalonia, Spain, with its most recent plant inagurated in 2021, bringing its total to seven production plants, employing more than 450 people.
At the end of 2024, Frime reported a turnover of €172 million.
Founded in 2020 as an online trading marketplace for seafood, Captain Fresh is now one of the world's largest exporters and distributors of fish and seafood.
On its website, the company clearly states its strategic aim to bring a wide variety of international seafood businesses within the same group, stating: "We are consolidating the large, fragmented industry across supply and demand."
In line with this strategy, Captain Fresh is steadily acquiring a series of seafood brands in Europe and the U.S., adding CenSea, one of the largest importers and distributors of frozen seafood in the United States, to its portfolio in 2024, in addition to French shrimp company Senecrus and Polish smoked salmon company Koral.
Earlier this year, CenSea acquired Ocean Garden, bringing another major US seafood importer into the Captain Fresh group.
