The move by global feed giant Cargill to take a significant stake in Chilean salmon farmer Multi X is unlikely to be the last such development if analysts' predictions prove correct.
Friday's announcement that Cargill plans to purchase a 24.5 percent stake in Multi X, formerly known as Salmones Multiexport, may have surprised the market with its timing, but the company telegraphed its plans to go downstream in seafood last year.
Sebastian Bray, an analyst at Berenberg, said it’s something of a theme of the past six to seven years that big meat processors and grain processors have become more interested in salmon because the scale of the salmon industry is greater than it has been in the past and such companies thrive on scale.
