China has started to buy better quality fishmeal rather than the traditional standard product. The better quality product is about 10% more expensive than the standard grade and sells for about US$570 per tonne. Hayduk, one of the main fishmeal processors in the country, reckons that this year it will produce about 160,000t of fishmeal and 30,000t of fish oil. In addition, Hayduk will also produce 1.2m boxes of tinned or potted fish and 6,500t of frozen fish. Most of the frozen fish is calamari and octopus, which are treated as delicacies in Asia.
Hayduk's production is a bit less than 10% of the national total. This came to 1.8mt of fishmeal in 2002. This made Peru the biggest fishmeal producer in the world. The cost of producing a tonne of prime fishmeal is about US$450. Hayduk can produce about 500t of fishmeal each hour from its five plants along the coast. The company says that the dispersed strategy is deliberate because it allows the fishermen to follow fish, principally anchovies, as they move south. The company has 40 trawlers to service the plants, and owns 25 of them.
In 1998 and 1999 the industry was badly affected by El Niño. This is the warm water phenomenon that moves from the west to the east of the Pacific, changing the weather along the coast and driving the anchovies further south.
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