Marine Harvest

Marine Harvest

The first company to use the name Marine Harvest was founded in Lochailort, Scotland by Unilever in 1965 at the outset of the Atlantic salmon farming industry. Unilever had been developing farming methods at a research facility there. The company began operations in Chile in 1975, where fishmeal raw material, originally supplying the chicken protein farming industry, started developing alternative markets in salmon and shrimp proteins. In 1992, Unilever sold the business to Lord's Hanson and White, together with Ground Round restaurants, Tommy Armour golf clubs and a tuna processor in Long Island California. Marine Harvest International (MHI) IPO on the Amex made it the first pure aquaculture play on the global stock markets. Two years later Booker Plc took the company private with the MHI shrimp division, in Ecuador, being sold to Pronaca (an Ecuadorian feed company). With ownership of the company passing to Booker plc it was merged with Booker's aquaculture subsidiary, McConnell Salmon. After deciding to divest Marine Harvest McConnell so as to concentrate on its core cash and carry business in 1998, Booker eventually succeeded in finding a buyer in July 1999. The Dutch-based nutrition firm Nutreco acquired the unit for £ 32.7 million, adding it to its fish food and salmon farming unit. Nutreco's initial attempt to further expand into the fish farming sector by acquiring the seafood arm of Norsk Hydro was blocked on the recommendation of the United Kingdom Competition Commission in late 2000, but the deal was approved in March 2001 after Nutreco agreed not to acquire Hydro Seafood's Scottish assets.