It was announced today that Dongwon Industries, a huge Korean fishery concern, will buy Starkist Tuna, division of Del Monte Food Company, for $300 million. It was revealed that Del Monte was losing money on Starkist because of the rapidly rising cost of skipjack tuna.
No word yet if Dongwon will only sell tuna of 30 months old or younger or if they will sell “lower quality” tuna that Americans don’t eat into the Korean market.
24 Comments
Wangdoodle, White Albacore tuna is sold ~98% of the time in America. The tuna that is eaten in Korea is a completely different tuna, thus the two businesses cater to different markets and tastes.
I quit eating that chicken of the sea when I read about the mercury level in that kind of fish.
I would eat fish that was younger anyway because of metal concentrations in bigger, older fish.
“Wangdoodle”?
I reread the post twice, and failed to find whatever WangKon wrote that was worthy of mockery. Your opening sentence doesn’t even make sense.
In a not-altogether-different industry, I just finished a booklet for a Korean industrial group that purchased a 35% stake in a European conglomerate. They wrote it up like it was a total acquisition. The Korean company has 3 operating bases, the European 18. The Korean company boasts now of a “global production platform of 22 bases across 8 countries”…oh wait, I wrote that for them. I’m such a whore.
But at least I’m not a prick. Like Fisher King.
TGIF. It’s Miller Time.
Another product to boycott. As for mercury levels, however, that is a myth. Having eaten as much tuna sahimi as my wife and I consume we recently got tested for mercury, and our levels were low.
Your words. Hope you at least make ‘em glove up.
This is really going to confuse Jessica Simpson.
Not a myth Mizar5, simply that the content isn’t consistent and they simply put the highest average. I knew someone who decided to nix burgers for lunch and packed a tuna sandwich. Mercury levels at his next checkup were through the roof, and had to avoid tuna like the plague.
The risk of mercury toxicity obviously depends on the size of the tuna species being consumed. The amount of detectible mercury in your body is influenced not only by how much you intake through fish, other foods, and liquids that come in contact with your skin, but also how much your body is able to excrete. Some herbs and foods are reputed to have the ability to chelate with minerals like mercury and carry them out of the body.
PCBs are even scarier because the body cannot excrete them, and they’ll keep accumulating if you keep consuming contaminated fish. I stick to anchovies, sardines, herring, and the occasional Alaskan salmon or halibut.
Didn’t mean to be overly mocking. However, the last line of the post is purposely mocking.
Consider this. What is a part of the tuna that Americans, until recently, didn’t eat and throw away? That would be the fatty belly part, what the Japanese call Toro, something they pay top dollar for. Globalization has created an entirely new (and highly profitable) revenue stream for American tuna fisheries. The point is that just because Americans don’t usually eat a certain part of an animal, doesn’t mean they are purposely sending you an inferior product. The Korean public should really have a mature attitude on this.
Regarding mercury. I’m not food or toxicology expert, but I believe the kind of tuna normally found in canned variety, which would be Albacore, has higher concentrations of mercury than the other kinds. Tuna classified as “light” or “gourmet” apparently has less mercury.
When is a Korean company gonna acquire Hormel Foods, the home of spam?
# 9,
That would be awsome… then we can get kimchi spam! They already have bacon spam, tabasco spam and turkey spam. Having kimchi spam would save me a cooking step, where I wouldn’t have to sauté the kimchi separately…
“These findings reinforce results in other studies showing that more expensive tuna usually contains more mercury because it is more likely to come from a larger species, which accumulates mercury from the fish it eats. Mercury enters the environment as an industrial pollutant.
In the Times survey, 10 of the 13 restaurants said at least one of the two tuna samples bought was bluefin…By contrast, other species, like yellowfin and albacore, generally have much less mercury. Several of the stores in the Times sample said the tuna in their sushi was yellowfin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01.....ref=slogin
sorry charlie…. brings a tear to my eye.
I stopped eating anything from the sea about 4 years ago, have decided that 1) the world’s oceans have become a sewer of chemicals, and anything big enough for me to be eating is far enough up the food chain to have accumulated too much chemical filth, and 2) the world’s ocean food chains are near collapse, and I don’t want to contribute to it.
Pork and chicken taste better anyways…
Well, if my message isn`t posted, search tunagate on Google.
Guess I gotta switch to Bumble Bee…..
Looks like the deal is in due dilligence, not completed. Per Forbes, here are the details:
1. Slated to close at the end of fiscal year 2008.
2. Total deal size: $363 million, a multiple of approximately 6-7 times the average trailing three-year contributed EBITDA. I still don’t know if that’s a good deal or bad deal, but considering that EBITDA is declining, it’s likely that Dongwon is overpaying. It’s likely that last 12-months EBITDA valuation is 8-9x.
3. StarKist is the best-selling canned tuna brand in the United States, with about a 37% market share.
4. The transaction is expected to generate net proceeds of $300 million for Del Monte, to be used to cut its debt (a.k.a “delever”).
5. The transaction will help the Dongwon Group, whose affiliates include the world’s biggest tuna fishing company, Dongwon Industries, and processed food maker Dongwon F&B, to create the world’s biggest canned tuna business.
6. Dongwon Group will set up a company in the United States to manage StarKist. The assets involved in the transaction also include Del Monte’s manufacturing facilities in American Samoa and Manta, Ecuador, and certain manufacturing assets associated with StarKist located on Terminal Island, California, and in Guayaquil, Ecuador. With the StarKist purchase, Dongwon also plans to expand in the South American and European canned tuna markets.
16. “Dongwon Group will set up a company in the United States to manage StarKist.”
Wonder if that will include Korean style management a la: female employees putting up with fondling, staying at work all night until the boss leaves then when he does, mandatory drinking all morning….
If it’s staffed by Korean expats and Korean Americans, probably. If it’s staffed mostly by Americans, probably not.
Korean multinationals are politically incorrect, but they are not stupid.
#18 ..I’m switching to Bumble Bee anyway. Don’t want to catch Mad Korean Disease and wake up as a candle-girl….
“Korean multinationals are politically incorrect, but they are not stupid.”
Obviously, you’ve never worked for one.
Well… I worked for my dad, if that qualifies. It was a pretty terrible experience because he didn’t manage the company like an American. He managed it to save every last ounce of margin, regardless of how people (like me) were treated. Needless to say, turnover was pretty high. Not the way I’d run a business, but it worked for him… I guess.
There is a difference between companies run stupidly and companies run immorally, from an American standpoint. Many observers (including me) will think that Samsung is run immorally, but it’s far more profitable than GM (even on a nominal basis) and will definately be around longer and be far more relevant than Motorola.
Samsung has been run as a boys club with few budget controls. Their success has been in my opinion largely a fluke.
why would you eat canned tuna when you live somewhere with a fish market?
anyway, in the US, unless your can says “solid” albacore tuna (in water usually), it’s probably skipjack tuna mixed in with leftovers from other types of tuna.
your only real mercury fear is from bluefin tuna… and they stopped using those for canned tuna a few decades ago.
also, i’ve probably eaten more fish (and tuna probably) than anyone here and i’ve yet to feel any neurotoxic effects from an excess of mercury in my body.
i mean, except for the constant forgetfulness, hair loss, and bitter rage at the world… i’m totally fine.
oh wait… crap.
# 22,
In my experience, Forest Gump-like, flukish success never happens in the real world. Sure, there is a little luck mixed in, but there is usually a pretty good reason why you are successful or unsucessful.