For Izmir based More Aquaculture, it’s not only about the fish production, but also about a concern for the environment and creating sustainability in the industry.
Because its export customers demand such high standards, it sees its ISO14001 standard, which requires it to constantly improve its environmental performance, as fundamental to its commercial success.
Standards
Its farms are also certified to the GLOBALG.A.P standard (which it says it was the first in Turkey to achieve) - which considers worker health safety as well as animal welfare. Indeed, Mr Levent Akgerman, Board Member, explained that without these standards, More could not export to Europe.
More Aquaculture was established in 2002 as part of the AKG Group which also has interests in the healthcare, construction, mining and tourism sectors. But now the company has three farms operating off the coast of Izmir producing 1550 tonnes with additional capacity for a further 1800 tonnes.
Additional seabass and seabream are brought in and processed for third parties but are monitored for quality to make sure they come up to International Food Standards (IFS) and British Retail Consortium Standards (BRC).
The company also processes and packages freshwater trout for which it has agreements in place with other Turkish producers who culture the fish and supply it to More for processing.
In 2009, More acquired a processing and packaging facility to process fish for the European export market. Fish takes no longer than one hour from to arrive at the plants from the farms.
Processing at the facility includes whole round fish and fillets – which is all done by hand as this creates higher yields. But the rest of the processing equipment is highly sophisticated, making for a happy combination of the best of both worlds.
Around 80% of More’s production is seabass, seabream and trout for the European export market, which is frozen and filleted. But the company prides itself on its flexibility and will produce fish to any customer supplied specification.
Ms Aslı Kahramaoglu, export representative, said to World Fishing & Aquaculture that the company has a number of new ventures it is undertaking in addition to looking at increasing its production.
