Drop In Supply Pre-cooked Loins From El Salvadorff

El Salvador delivered to Spain 10,945 M/T of frozen pre-cooked tuna loins in 2006, with Spain being the only EU destination to which the country exported its loins.

This volume is a significant fall back from 2005, when El Salvador became the leading supplier of loins to Spain, overtaking Ecuador. In 2006, the Middle American nation was not able to sustain its export growth and Ecuador regained its position in the Iberian market with 16,063 M/T of pre-cooked product. A total volume of 31,374 M/T of loins was exported by Ecuador to the entire European market.

 The entire export of loins from El Salvador is produced by the only tuna plant in the country, which is located in the town of La Union, and is owned by the Spanish Grupo Calvo. The cannery and loining plant has the capacity to process 60,000 metric tons of raw tuna per annum. Calvo’s Galician cannery in Carballo, Spain is the final destination of the all the exported loins. It is in this facility where tuna processing and canning takes place.

The drop in the exported volume is most likely related to the lower tuna catches in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and the inability of the plant management to obtain sufficient raw tuna in the market to fill the full production capacity.