Chilean start-up produces crisps from salmon offcuts
A family business converts discarded seafood products into gluten-free snacks, maintaining the nutritional qualities of the ingredients
“Before the Covid pandemic, we began to think about how to take advantage of salmon discards because we saw that it was a safe and nutritious product that did not have to end up in the garbage.” Thus begins the story of Carolina Carrera, co-founder with her sister Carla of the company Laks Foods that uses discarded seafood to make healthy snacks.
First, they thought of making burgers but wanted something more innovative and leaned towards snacks, advancing their project with the support of state business development agency Corfo and the Regional Centre for Healthy Food Studies (CREAS) of the Valparaíso Region, which gives guarantees on the nutritional qualities of products.
“We implemented a processing plant and became producers of this chip that keeps all the properties of seafood,” said Carolina. Today they work with discarded salmon, shrimp and mussels. In the case of salmon, they are supplied from a plant located in Puerto Montt and process 2,800 kilos of discards per month.
“The idea was to make salmon consumption easier, especially for certain groups such as children or people who don’t have time to cook. This is a product that you can eat any time, anywhere," explained Carolina.
10,000-pack target
The company produces 2,000 packets of each of its three snack products each month but plans to reach 10,000 units before the end of the year. Laks Food has two points of sale of its own, one in Valparaíso and another in Santiago, and the products are in some specialised stores and on the company’s website.
The origin of the company is in another family business, Promagro, a company owned by Carolina and Carla’s father that was dedicated to the sale of frozen seafood. The drop in sales in this area sparked the move into snacks.
Production starts with a salmon paste that goes through a delicate process so that its specific humidity is not affected, and nutrients are not lost. The paste is mixed with gluten-free flours, then it goes through extrusion, rolling and frying for five seconds.
