MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Galicia medium sized fish processing plants benefit with 8.3m Euros

Contributions are intended to support investments made by SMEs that will significantly help to save energy or reduce the impact on the environment.

A total of 50 small and medium-sized companies in Galicia were beneficiaries of the 2017 call for investments aid that result in improvements in the processing of fishery, shellfish and aquaculture products. This was announced by the Minister of Marine Affairs, Rosa Quintana, at the Pobra do Caramiñal, during a visit to the refrigeration logistics company Alimentos Cruz del Sur (Alicrusa), one of the beneficiaries.

 Quintana explained that these grants approved and co-financed with the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund are supposed to represent a value of more than EUR 8.3 million and are added to the figures of the 2016 call, which benefited 28 companies for an amount greater than EUR 4 million.

According to the minister, these contributions are intended to support investments made by SMEs that will significantly contribute to saving energy or reducing the impact on the environment. In addition, they will also contribute to the improvement of safety, hygiene, health and working conditions and that will eventually result in new and better products, processes and management systems and organization, among other aspects.

As regards Alicrusa, Quintana explained that the granted aid will be useful for the optimization of their process and management systems in the treatment of tuna species. Likewise she highlighted the important service this company carries out within the frozen sector, as it functions as a storage, manufacturing and distribution platform for its products. In addition, it also provides services to the canning sector, distributors and ship owners and in its facilities include different species such as tuna, hake and squid.

Alicrusa was founded in 2007 and was conceived as a logistics storage and distribution platform. It has a warehouse to preserve the stored products, a processing room for food products and an area for unloading and loading goods. Besides, in its upper part it houses the administration department dependencies. Its clients come mainly from Galicia, Catalonia, Navarre and Portugal. (FIS).