Christian Molinari

Christian Molinari

Contributing Editor

A native of San Francisco, Christian Molinari has lived and worked in Chile for over 20 years, after having arrived in Santiago as a volunteer and falling in love with the culture and its people. He covered business news in Latin America for over a decade, worked in communications at IBM Chile, and currently freelances in strategic communications and reporting.


Author Archive

Published on
September 11, 2024

Chinese foodservice group Joyvio, which owns Chilean salmon-farming firm Australis, recently suffered a second setback in its legal proceedings against Isidoro Quiroga, a Chilean businessman who used to own Australis and who Joyvio has accused of committing one of the “greatest frauds in the history of Chile.”

Quiroga sold Australis to Joyvio in 2018 for USD 921 million (EUR 843 million); however, following the sale, Joyvio alleged

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Published on
September 10, 2024

Ecuador’s aquaculture, fishing, and agricultural sectors suffered around 900 extortion attempts in just 45 days, the Ecuadorian National Aquaculture Chamber (CNA) recently reported.

About 20 extortion alert calls a day were placed along Ecuador’s coast between 15 July and 31 August, the CNA said, but 75 percent of those cases were not handed to a prosecutor’s office. As a result, authorities did not initiate a formal complaint

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Published on
September 9, 2024

Puerto Montt, Chile-based salmon-farming firm Multi X saw its financial performance dip in the second quarter of 2024 as lower harvests and sales took a toll on revenues.

Multi X’s revenues were down 16 percent in Q2 2024 to USD 175 million (EUR 158 million) from USD 207 million (EUR 187 million) in the same quarter of 2023. The firm’s EBITDA fell 31 percent year over year to USD 15.6 million (EUR 14.1 million), while net losses

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Published on
September 4, 2024

Financially challenged Chilean salmon-farming firm Nova Austral continued to post losses in the second quarter of 2024, following a trend of several quarters of losses that was briefly interrupted in Q1 when the company turned a net profit of USD 400,000 (EUR 362,000).

During the second quarter of the year, Nova Austral’s top-line revenues reached USD 13.8 million (EUR 12.5 million), a 53 percent drop when compared to the USD 29.4 million

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Published on
September 4, 2024

An algae bloom and a fire at one of its processing plants negatively affected Chilean salmon farmer and fishing firm Blumar’s results during the first half of 2024.

An algae bloom at the beginning of the year at Blumar’s Victoria and Chivato I grow-out centers, located in the southern Aysén region, reduced projected harvests by more than 4,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon, the company said in its first half results. Meanwhile,

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Published on
August 29, 2024

Ambiguous and stringent regulations, as well as changing market preferences for fresh food products, have made Chile less competitive as a salmon-producing nation compared to other countries such as Norway, according to Mowi Chile CEO Fernando Villarroel.

Regulation of Chile’s salmon industry is often complex and strict, he told El Mercurio, which has limited the sector's growth and created a perception that the government does not favor

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Published on
August 29, 2024

According to the latest annual report from Brazilian fish-farming association Peixe BR on Brazil’s fish output, the South American country produced 887,029 metric tons (MT) of farmed fish in 2023, marking a 3.1 percent jump from 2022 and surging 53.2 percent from the 578,800 MT produced 10 years ago.

Farmed tilapia took up 65.3 percent of total production, reaching 579,080 MT, followed by native species such as tambaqui and pirarucu coming

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