Our Operations

SOUTH AFRICAN FISHING GROUP

Sea Harvest hake

Cape hake and Horse mackerel are caught off the coasts of South Africa in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Fishing takes place 15 to 120 nautical miles from the shore at depths of up to 800m, using Sea Harvest’s own fleet of vessels.

The Sea Harvest fleet consists of factory freezer and wet fish trawlers that operate out of Cape Town, Saldanha Bay and Mossel Bay on the southern coast of South Africa. On fresh fish trawlers, fish are headed and gutted at sea and packed on ice for delivery to the company’s shore-based processing facilities, locking in taste and texture. Sea Harvest’s state-of-the-art factory freezer trawlers catch and immediately process and freeze the fish into a range of frozen-at-sea products, including fillets, headed & gutted (H&G).

A wide range of plain, coated and crumbed fillets, loins and steaks, as well as other value-added seafood products, are produced at the company’s land-based processing facilities. Our premium wild-caught species have become highly sought-after in local and international markets.

Sea Harvest Pelagic

Sea Harvest Pelagic is an integrated pelagic fishing business based in St Helena Bay on the West Coast of South Africa engaged in the catching, processing and sale of pelagic fish. Founded in 1905, the business operates six fishing vessels that catch sardines and anchovy. From this catch (and those of third parties and imported raw materials), it produces fish oil and fishmeal, which has multiple certifications that allow it to be exported to anywhere in the world, and canned fish (largely for the South African market), which is sold under the 120-year-old Saldanha brand).

Major upgrades to the cannery, fishmeal plant and jetty in recent years paved the way for the factory to receive Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification for health and quality, as well as the ISO 22000 certification, a globally recognised standard for food safety management systems. In 2020, the cannery received its FSSC certification, making it the first canned fish manufacturer to be certified by this food safety certification scheme in South Africa.

Sea Harvest International

Sea Harvest Australia owns and operates 21 vessels and 25 prawn, 20 Spanish mackerel and 5 fish trawl licences in Shark Bay, Exmouth, and Broome in Western Australia. Our four distinct business lines in Australia include: our prawn business that comprises separate operations in Exmouth and Carnarvon; our fish trawl business that operates in Broome, focusing on wild-caught fish, which are either frozen onboard or sold fresh; our trading business that is primarily centred on seafood from South Africa, and which plays a crucial role in our Australian operations; and our engineering business in Fremantle that service the fishing business and other third-party clients.

The western king prawns and brown tiger prawns caught by Sea Harvest Australia are graded by size, plate frozen at sea and packed into market-ready packaging onboard the vessels. Trip lengths for the prawn trawlers are in the region of 22 days, thereafter the fleet returns to port to offload at the start of every full moon closure of the fishery. The fishery is based on an input control management framework. This includes permanent and temporarily closed areas, spatial and temporal controls (including moon closures) to manage the fishing effort and achieve environmental sustainability objectives.

Spanish mackerel is a white, firm fish that has darker meat and are one of the tastiest of the Mackerel family. The catch is processed into frozen fillets onboard the Spanish mackerel vessels, which are Export registered (including the EU), and are marketed both locally and internationally for the world to share the seafood provenance of the north west of Australia.

Sea Harvest Australia also has an engineering division that operates out of Freemantle Harbour in Perth. It provides engineering services to the fishing business and other third-party clients.

SEA HARVEST AQUACULTURE

Abalone

Sea Harvest Aquaculture includes a majority share in Aqunion, one of the world’s leading abalone farming businesses, which consists of a union of three well-known South African abalone businesses (Romanbaai Farm, Buffelsjags and Diamond Coast Aquaculture). Sea Harvest Aquaculture harnesses the skills and expertise of Southern Africa’s foremost aquaculturists to farm and process high quality abalone for the South African and international markets. A species of abalone (Haliotis midae), which is endemic to South Africa and highly valued in Eastern cultures, are grown at eight farms in the southern Cape and on the west coast.

Aquafeed

Sea Harvest Aquaculture’s aquafeed business, Marifeed, uses high-quality ingredients and a completely traceable modern manufacturing process to produce natural aqua feed. Its ABFEED brand is an advanced aquafeed, produced to a specialized formulation for abalone, which improves growth rates cost-effectively. ABFEED has exceptional water stability and is the number one selling formulated feed in South Africa, New Zealand, the USA, Australia, and Namibia.

CAPE HARVEST FOODS GROUP

Sea Harvest Group offers a basket of dairy products through its wholly-owned subsidiaries of Ladismith Cheese and Mooivallei Suiwel. Ladismith Cheese is located in the picturesque towns of Ladismith, and Mooivallei in Bonnievale, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Ladismith Cheese’s primary business is the production, distribution, marketing and sale of value-added dairy products to the South African retail, wholesale, foodservice and food ingredients markets. It has cheese, powder and butter factories and a fleet of tankers that collect milk from a dedicated group of farmers located in the Western and Eastern Cape. This milk is processed into gouda, cheddar, mozzarella and edam cheese, as well as various types of powdered milk, butters and spreads. The company also has distribution depots in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Cape Harvest Foods holds a shareholding in Alliance Foods, a broad-based ambient foodservice importer and distributor.

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