Shrimp firm Klaas Puul plans new factory in the Netherlands

Dutch shrimp firm Klaas Puul will replace and update its headquarters in Volendam, in the Netherlands, according to CEO Maiko van der Meer.

The company has made plans for the construction of a new, 5,506-square-meter shrimp processing and packaging facility, with a move-in date planned for early 2018.

“Mainly due to the ever increasing hygienic requirements and the need to adhere to the highest BRC [British Retail Consortium] certification standards, this new construction was committed,” van der Meer said in an email to SeafoodSource.

Klaas Puul, with roughly 3,500 employees and nearly EUR 200 million (USD 222.6 million) in sales in 2015, processes both small North Sea and larger tropical shrimp in plants mostly in Morocco, with additional facilities in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark. Van der Meer said increasingly stringent food safety laws were a primary cause of the new investment in Volendam.

“All other factories are already state of the art. Volendam was the only one left which needed upgrading. Moving this activity elsewhere was discarded for many reasons. That is why we decided to invest in Volendam,” van der Meer said. “The idea for these construction plans where already present in 2012, however due to the necessity for a new factory in Tangier (Morocco), the original plans for Volendam [were] postponed.”

The packing lines in the company’s current Volendam facility will move from their current premises to the new building, while its thawing and cooking facilities will be expanded by 2,000 square meters and moved to Edam, the town next to Volendam.

H2 Equity Partners purchased the firm from the Moojier family in August 2016 and has invested additional resources into the company, but van der Meer said financial backing for the expansion project came from several sources.

“[Various sources contributed to] the overall financing, not specifically H2,” he said. “As you know, the [Moojier] family is still a very substantial shareholder and we obviously also attracted bank financing.”