South Africa’s Saldanha Protein Group revamps fishmeal plant in preparation for next fishing season

Cape Town, South Africa-based Saldanha Protein Group has launched a major maintenance program to enhance the performance of its fishmeal and fish canning operations ahead of the country’s fishing season in Q1 2024..

Saldanha Protein Group General Manager Marthin Potgieter told SeafoodSource that the ongoing maintenance program at its St. Helena Bay-based factory on the country’s west coast entails replacing one of the fishmeal plant’s cooking lines, as well as revamping the plant’s reverse osmosis process for purifying industrial water used at the plant, which should help reduce overall energy consumption.

“We scheduled the maintenance to coincide with the low season fishing period just to make sure that when the season starts, we are ready,” Potgieter said. “The maintenance project we are undertaking now will be finished by early January 2024 … and this will ensure the plant is available for maximum production through the year.”

Potgieter, a Cape Peninsula University of Technology mechanical engineering graduate who possesses expertise on these types of maintenance processes, said the routine upkeep “is critical on an annual basis – especially for manufacturing infrastructure – to ensure that as a fish processor, you utilize every opportunity to maximize performance and the factory is operating at its best in every fishing season.”

The factory is the first food-processing facility in South Africa to hold Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification for health and quality, as well as an ISO 22000 certification, which is a food safety management credential verifying that an operation has the ability to meet customer, statutory, and regulatory demands.

The factory has the capacity to process more than 20 metric tons (MT) of raw fish per hour in its cannery, and more than 65 MT of raw fish in its fishmeal plant. Products the company produces at the factory include ... 

Photo courtesy of Saldanha Protein Group