SAPMER’s new -40°C cold room at Port Louis

Founded in 1947, and based in Reunion Island, SAPMER handles two activities. A fishing activity with its Saint Paul Rock Lobster and Patagonian toothfish from the southern Antarctic seas (historic activities) and tuna fishing (skipjack and yellowfin) of the Indian Ocean and a halieutic products value enhancing activity, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to Sapmer.

The tuna activity began in September 2009. More than 93 M€ were invested over three years in the construction of three tuna purse seiners, which allow -40°C deep freezing on board.

In order to handle and store the unloaded products of its ships, SAPMER now has a -40°C cold room of a 900-ton storage capacity and a process and value enhancing factory Mer des Mascareignes, both situated at Port Louis in Mauritius Island.

Franche Terre, Manapany and Bernica respectively began their first fishing campaign in September 2009, August 2010 and Decembre 2010. At full capacity, these three tuna ships designed in a completely new way will catch around 21,000 tons of yellowfin and skipjack tuna per year.

Due to the strong increase of this activity, the building of a new -40°C cold room to store the unloaded tuna quickly became necessary. Within a partnership with the Mauritian group MFD (Mauritius Freeport Development), logistics and storage specialist, SAPMER is now renting 2,000sq of complementary -40°C storage facility at Port Louis.

On their arrival, tunas (skipjack and yellowfin) are sorted by size and species with the help of two sorting lines. 300 tones of products are sorted each day. They transit through a buffer zone at -18°C before being stored in the cold room, of a 1,800 tones holding capacity, at -40°C.

This storage unit, high-tech and secured, offers several advantages:

● A complete respect of the cold chain,

● An enhanced handling capacity when unloading products,

● A ‘just in time' supply of Mer des Mascareignes.

A computer system was integrated to the cold room in order to handle stocks and traceability of all stored products (date of arrival/departure, date & zone of fishing, follow up on the stocks...)

With this new installation, SAPMER has at its disposal 2,700 tones of storage in Mauritius Island. This cold room, represents for MFD an investment of 2 M€, and just came into service in February 2011, to welcome Bernica's first unloading.