Aug 13, 2014

BioMar and Sagun to establish joint venture and fish feed plant in Turkey
  

BioMar Group and Sagun Group, a leading Turkish company involved in aquaculture, fish processing and trading, signed the final agreement for the establishment of a joint-venture feed company and a fish feed plant in Turkey, which is expected to be operational at the end of 2015.
 

The establishment of the new Turkish joint-venture will strengthen BioMar's position in the Eastern Mediterranean area considerably. In particular, the combination of BioMar's know-how in feed development and manufacturing with Sagun's strong network within the Turkish aquaculture sector will give the new feed company a strong platform to start from.

The BioMar-Sagun joint-venture feed company will mainly serve Turkey, the second largest aquaculture market in Europe, but once the feed plant becomes operational, the new feed company will also start export sales to some of the neighboring countries.

Although production of the new fish feed plant near Izmir in south west of Turkey will only begin at the end of 2015, Turkish fish farmers will be able to purchase feed from other BioMar factories in a few months, through the newly established BioMar-Sagun feed company.

Currently, the Turkish market is already served by more than 15 feed companies, but almost all are local players with limited resources for research and product development.

The annual Turkish aquaculture production has grown to around 200,000 tonnes of fish in recent years. Today, Turkey is the second largest aquaculture nation in Europe after Norway. On top of supplying the growing domestic fish consumption, Turkey has also become a major supplier of fish species like sea bass, sea bream, and trout to the European market.

President of the Sagun Group, Ahmet Tuncay Sagun said, "BioMar is a perfect match for the Sagun Group. The know-how of BioMar within areas like fish feed development, sourcing, and feed manufacturing will benefit both us and other fish farmers in Turkey. BioMar is the leading supplier of high performance feed to sea bass, sea bream, and trout in Europe, and we are proud to enter into a collaboration agreement with BioMar on equal terms. We believe this joint-venture will help to develop and strengthen the whole aquaculture sector in Turkey."