ESTONIA
and for about 10 years after that its activities were restricted to just catching and trading the fish, the processing operations started some 15 years ago. Currently the company is building a new and larger processing area that will replace the old one. The new facility is almost complete and is expected to start operating within a few weeks with a few additional employees. Finding them, however, is not easy as Mehikoorma is a small
place and almost all those that can be employed are already in jobs, says Ms Narusing. Filleting bream is also not easy to do by hand as it has to be skinned first and it is a difficult fish to fillet. Automation is not the answer as the quality is not the same as when hand-filleted. The old processing area will be used to host the smoking ovens, traditional brick ovens that use firewood, which the company uses to hotsmoke products.
Latikas Mehikoorma Meeksi vald 62511 Tartumaa Estonia +372 5885 5770 latikasou@hotmail.com Ower: Mr Margus Narusing Sales and marketing director: Ms Neidi Narusing
Species: Bream, pike, pike-perch, other locally caught freshwater species; salmon, herring, ounder, Arctic char Products form: Whole, gutted, ďŹ llets, minced ďŹ sh meat, burgers Processing type: Fresh, frozen, smoked, fried Shops: 3 (Tartu, Tallinn, Tartumaa) Employees: 32
Kallaste Kalur processes freshwater ďŹ sh for domestic and export markets
Existing processing unit gets a new owner Kallaste Kalur is a ďŹ shing and processing company located on the shore of the Peipus lake in Kallaste. Founded in 1992 the company was bought last year by an entrepreneur with interests in ďŹ shing, as well as in transport and logistics.
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anar Nurmoja, sales manager, and Marek Värs, production manager, who are involved in the day to day management, are veterans of the fish business having both studied and worked in other companies from the sector. The new owner has been occupied mainly with the transport and logistics industry, but he has long been interested in fishing, and even before buying Kallaste Kalur had been buying fishing rights in Peipus lake. He started with fishermen in Rannapungerja and then decided to take it a step further by buying Kallaste Kalur and the associated fishing rights.
Focus on quality all along the value chain The company’s fishing vessels are now based at two ports, Kallaste,
where the processing facility is based, and Rannapungerja, some 50 km to the north. The company’s fishing rights are used by its own employees as well as by independent fishermen under contract. The latter catch the fish and then sell it to the company at the prevailing market price. We pay a fair price for the fish, says Mr Värs, because otherwise the fishermen would sell it, wherever they could get a better deal. A good relationship with the fishermen also helps to ensure the quality of the fish. As the first link in the value chain it is very important that the catch is handled properly on board and stored on ice as soon as it has been sorted by species. Vessels based at the port at Rannapungerja return there to unload the catch, which is then carried by road to the processing facility in Kallaste as this is faster
A fishing vessel docked a few meters from the Kallaste Kalur processing facility.
than sailing. Rannapungerja too has ice facilities which supply the vessels and the trucks that transport the fish. The company primarily processes the fish caught by its own vessels, but if the price is good, then raw material is also sourced from other fishers.
Altogether the volumes of raw materials the company is processing amount to some two tonnes of fish a day on average, which is converted mainly into fresh and frozen fillets. At the Kallaste port, the fish is first graded, then washed and put on ice or frozen. To add Eurofish Magazine 4 / 2017
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