Rare’s Meloy Fund invests in Filipino seafood firm Meliomar

The Meloy Fund, a new partnership providing equity to sustainable small-scale fishing-related enterprises in Philippines and Indonesia, has made its first investment in fishing, processing and exporting firm Meliomar.

The Meloy Fund, which is managed by the nonprofit conservation group Rare, announced its USD 1 million (EUR 965,000) investment in Meliomar on Tuesday, 20 December. The five-year investment will help the Manila, Philippines-based Meliomar increase its processing capacity, improve logistics, and develop additional product lines.

As part of the agreement, Meliomar will source at least 10 tons of seafood annually from fishery improvement projects (FIPs). That have been jointly developed between local Filipino communities and Rare’s flagship coastal fisheries program, Fish Forever.

Rare projects the investment to add at least USD 2.5 million (EUR 2.4 million) in additional annual income to around 16,000 local fishermen and move at least 12,000 hectares of critically important marine ecosystems under improved management by 2021, it said in a press release.

“We are looking forward to the collaboration with the Meloy Fund, which will finance our increased investment and working capital needs for our growing sustainable seafood business in the Philippines,” Meliomar CEO Christian Schmidradner said. “It was key to have a financing partner that understands the complexities and underlying challenges of working with local small-scale fisheries towards improvement and management reform.”

The newly created Meloy Fund is focused on socially and environmentally focused investments in coastal fisheries in Indonesia and the Philippines. Financial backers include the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, Bloomberg Philanthropies and JPMorgan Chase.

The fund is part of a larger initiative of Rare's Sustainable Markets Group to create financial incentives and innovative public-private collaborations to scale conservation solutions in communities with coastal fisheries. According to Rare, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans Initiative (VOI) “has played a fundamental role in creating the foundation for the Meloy Fund to succeed.”