BioMar's Durán plant in Ecuador completes phase one expansion, raising annual shrimp feed capacity from 300,000 tonnes to 410,000 tonnes

BioMar Ecuador held a completion ceremony on October 29 for phase one of its production expansion project, under which the annual capacity of its Durán plant will rise from 300,000 tonnes to 410,000 tonnes within 2026. The expansion plan was first announced by the company earlier this year, and its path includes retrofitting existing production facilities and installing a new production line.

BioMar said the company continues to use external toll-processing capacity to meet feed demand. Andres Rivadulla, general manager of BioMar Ecuador, said at the ceremony that the expansion has increased the company's production capacity and its ability to respond to customer demand; continued cooperation with toll-milling partners allows the company to keep pace with market growth. He called the completion an important achievement for the Ecuador team and a foundation for the next phase of expansion.

According to the arrangements disclosed by the company, the next phase is expected to add a further 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes of capacity, alongside further construction of plant infrastructure.

Henrik Aarestrup, BioMar's vice president for shrimp and hatchery in Latin America, said in a press release that Ecuador is one of the world's most important shrimp markets, that the company sees strong potential for continued growth, and that investment in capacity is driven by the development of customer partnerships and rising demand for high-performance feed solutions.

In recent years, BioMar Ecuador's customer base has expanded from small and medium-sized shrimp farmers to long-term strategic cooperation with some of the country's largest shrimp farmers.

One side of the scale of Ecuador's shrimp trade can be seen in Chinese customs statistics: in August 2026, China imported 73,684.42 tonnes of warm-water shrimp (penaeid shrimp, including whiteleg shrimp and black tiger shrimp, under the customs commodity classification HS 0306.17) from Ecuador, with an import value of USD 320,471,897.0 and an average import price of USD 4,349.25 per tonne.