Improved pricing, increased demand for seafood protein lead to revenue spike for Oceana Group

Cape Town, South Africa-based Oceana Group reported a significantly improved performance for the six months ending 31 March 2023, with a 48 percent increase in revenue from its businesses in South Africa, Namibia, and the U.S.

A few years removed from troubling financial reports, and only a year removed from ousting its CFO over allegations of gross misconduct, the beginning of 2023 has seen significant improvements  in Oceana’s performance.

A mix of factors – including dependable stock availability, growing demand for affordable protein, and improved pricing particularly for fish oil – pushed the company’s revenues to ZAR 4.5 billion (USD 245 million, EUR 224 million) compared to ZAR 3 billion (USD 163 million, EUR 149 million) for the same period a year prior.

Oceana, a company that specializes in the catching, processing, marketing, and distribution of canned fish, fishmeal, fish oil, lobster, horse mackerel, squid, and hake, increased its operating profit by 87.7 percent for the period under review. This increase brought in ZAR 648 million (USD 35 million, EUR 32 million), up from ZAR 345 million (USD 19 million, EUR 17 million) in 2022.

The positive performance resulted in a 60.5 percent jump in cash generated from its operations to ZAR 563 million (USD 31 million, EUR 28 million), up from ZAR 350 million (USD 19 million, EUR 17 million) in 2022.

One of the only data points that remained stagnant in the unaudited interim results for the six months was Oceana’s flat gross margin from its continuing operations, which at 27.1 percent was just 0.1 percent more than what it posted for the previous year. The company attributes this to...

Photo courtesy of Oceana Group