Based in the centre of the Mediterranean, Malta, Azzopardi Fisheries has been in the fishing industry for more than two generations. The father of the current partners Charles and Anthony founded the business, 30 years ago.
Today, under our second generation management the business expanded from a small fish-shop operation to Malta's largest seafood business with a strong international presence.
Azzopardi Fisheries were the pioneers in Malta in changing the culture of eating fish. Fish was considered a cheap meal as fish was relatively inexpensive compared to other food products. Today, fish is considered a healthy food and is highly recommended in first class restaurants and by caterers for all celebrations.
The partnership distributes imported and home supplied products to the following sectors:
- Hotels, restaurants and catering establishments, where it is the main supplier of fresh and frozen fish and seafood to the biggest operators in Malta.
- Supermarkets and food stores where it supplies frozen fish and seafood.
- A retail network of associated fish shops located all over the Island of Malta.
- Fresh and frozen export sales to Japanese and Asian Markets.
- Fresh and frozen sales to other EU Countries.
The partnership operates from its headquarters at St Paul's Bay, Malta. This premises is fully owned by the partnership and is fully HACCP and EU compliant with a state of the art cold store, a modern cold store complex approx. 1500M/Tons, modern processing facilities.
Based on current sales patterns, growth rates and conservative projections, the partnership’s activity will increase as it continues to consolidate its national presence and strengthen itself further on the international scene.
Our conservative projections indicate that the business will grow as follows:
National Sales 5% in years 2005, 2006 and 2007
International Sales 20% in 2005, 5% in 2006 and 4% in 2007
Whilst conscious of their strong role and responsibilities in the Fisheries sector, the partners believe that success would not have been possible had they not retained a strong rapport with the local fishing community.
Azzopardi Fisheries is the main fish merchant, and handle’s 45% of all fish caught by the Maltese fishermen. For the past 20 years, the partnership has been handling long line tuna, swordfish, grouper, red mallet, dentex, octopus, mahi-mahi, squid and rascasse.
It also owns and operates new deep-sea prawn trawlers for fishing and processing sea-frozen red king prawns. Azzopardi Fisheries excels in efficient fish management as well as management of various aquaculture farms.
Azzopardi Fisheries were the pioneers of the tuna farming industry in Malta. The partnership runs its blue fin tuna farm located at 2 sites in Malta with a combined annual capacity of 3000 metric tonnes making it the largest tuna farming operation in the Mediterranean. Azzopardi Fisheries set up this venture as AJD Tuna Limited in 1999 in partnership with a Japanese tuna marketing company. This success of this venture arose from the synergy of Azzopardi’s coordination with tuna purse seines and the capabilities of the Japanese marketing expertise.
Azzopardi also owns a sea bass/sea bream farm with a capacity of 500 metric tonnes.
On a commercial level Azzopardi Fisheries attributes its success to its commitment to quality. Its flexible sales and marketing approach provides local and foreign customers alike with the confidence that they will get a quality product, supplied on time and at the right price.
Azzopardi Fisheries takes quality as basis and reputation as aim, wishing to cooperate with domestic and foreign counterparts and seeks mutual development on the basis of mutual benefit.