In 2014, after tons of dead crabs and other marine species washed up onshore, the mayor of Chancay asked the Environmental Assessment and Oversight Agency to supervise the wastewater treatment of several fishmeal and fish processing plants in the area that discharge into the coastal waters off Chancay.1 The plants included: Pesquera Caral, Austral Group, CFG Investment, Pesquera Centinela, and Corporación Pesquera Inca.
Pesquera Caral owns at least two vessels whose catch goes primarily into making fishmeal, according to the Friend of the Sea vessel database from December 2024. Information about vessels can also be found on Peru’s Ministry of Production’s online vessel consultation service.2
In 2021, two workers at Pesquera Caral, Martín Humberto Borja Zegarra and José Fernando Diaz Castillo, died from ammonia inhalation while unloading a factory vessel owned by the company, according to a Facebook video posted by Chancay Reportes.3 “A relative of the deceased José Fernando Díaz reported that the Caral company forced his brother to unload the raw material, threatening to remove him from work,” reported Huara Lin Linea. “He also said that both people did not have the safety equipment and special implements to be able to unload, and that the ammonia would have taken the lives of both workers.”4 That same year, workers in Caral’s labor union protested in front of the plant, “against the non-compliance of their labor rights,” according to a Facebook post by Septima Día.5 There was another labor rights protest in 2022.6 That year, a black plume of smoke was released from the Pesquera Caral plant, according to a Facebook post by Aktiva FM.7
Pesquera Caral did not respond to a request for comment.
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