FoodCorp Chile is owned by Austervoll Seafood, a publicly traded seafood company based in Norway. The company owns and operates fishing vessels, fishmeal plants, processing plants and salmon farms, including the Norwegian seafood company Lerøy Seafood and the Austral Group in Peru.1
FoodCorp owns four vessels, the Cazador, Ruth, Alf, and the Don Manuel, according to Chile’s Fisheries Service, Sernapesca.2 “Despite all our preventive efforts, in January 2019 we had a fatal accident which claimed one of our on-board engineers,” said a post by FoodCorp Chile’s website. “The tragic accident happened at a pier while boarding the service boat that was going to take him to his fishing vessel.”3
In 2020, FoodCorp Chile had planned to invest $2 million to expand its frozen fish plant and triple daily production. To do so, the company had to undergo an environmental impact assessment, but it halted the project at the last minute to better understand how to deal with the additional waste. FoodCorp was the second factory in the area to take this action that year.4
In July 2020, The Environmental Superintendent filed two charges against Foodcorp Chile regarding the improper treatment of liquid industrial waste in the frozen product process, according to a government press release. Juan Pablo Granzow, the acting regional office head, explained that the charges stemmed from issues related to liquid waste management, oil pipelines, and environmental monitoring. He emphasized that the findings made it impossible to conduct an environmental assessment.5
In June 2020, Chile’s environmental regulator brought charges against Foodcorp for violations at its three fishmeal processing plants located in Caleta Lo Rojas, Coronel Commune, in the Biobio region of Chile. All three plants discharge their liquid waste to a shared wastewater treatment plant, also operated by Foodcorp. Acting on complaints by local regulators and the maritime authority, government inspectors found “inadequate treatment of liquid industrial waste” and a failure to conduct required environmental monitoring for 2017–2019 for waste flowing into the shared treatment plant. At the time of inspection, Foodcorp was not operating the secondary chemical treatment unit, meaning liquid industrial waste and foam due to organic matter from fishing resources was being discharged into the sea.6
Government regulators classified two offenses: insufficient liquid industrial waste treatment and missing self-reports, and warned Foodcorp of heavy financial penalties.7 While these particular charges were deemed minor due to no catastrophic damage observed, they underscored regulatory vigilance on fish processors’ wastewater.
FoodCorp Chile did not respond to a request for comment.8