TURKEY
Kilic Seafood adds tuna farming to its list of activities
Fresh and frozen exports to Japan Kilic Seafood is synonymous with the Turkish fish farming sector. The company is fully integrated producing at all stages of the farmed seafood value chain. The main production is seabass, seabream, meagre, and rainbow trout. In addition to ongrowing facilities for farmed fish, Kilic has hatcheries, feed production units, packaging facilities and processing factories producing a range of sophisticated items. Since 2015 the company has also been farming tuna, on-growing the fish in cages in the sea off Karaburun near Izmir.
The vessel with an office on board, from where the tuna farming operations are managed.
W
ith a production of 50,000 tonnes of fish including seabass, seabream, trout, and meagre, Kilic Seafood is the biggest seafood company in Turkey. In recent years, it has also been establishing production activities in other parts of the world. In Albania, for example, it has started farming trout, while in Mauritania it has established a fishmeal and fish oil factory using the locally available raw
material. In the Dominican Republic trials on seabass are being carried out and discussions are on-going with the authorities in Morocco and Tunisia to establish production facilities there. While activities are being established outside Turkey, operations within the country are not standing still either, says Sinan Kiziltan, vice president of the executive board of Kilic Holding. The fish retail shop at the corporate
headquarters site on the Milas Bodrum highway now includes a fast food outlet, that serves freshly prepared fast food to motorists. But perhaps most significant, among the latest ventures the company has embarked on, is tuna farming.
Japan absorbs most tuna from the Mediterranean Tuna farming or ranching is widespread in the Mediterranean
with companies in many countries around the Mediterranean, including Croatia, Italy, Spain, Malta, as well as Turkey. Operators catch the young bluefin tuna in the wild, transport the fish to cages and fatten them for the market. Almost all the fish is intended for Japan, where bluefin tuna is very popular and commands high prices. The industry is dependent however on young fish caught from the wild as tuna hatcheries on a commercial scale Eurofish Magazine 1 / 2017
&!" % ! ,.((
37
0-