Seamark Group is a multinational

food processing Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industr ...

conglomerate Conglomerate or conglomeration may refer to: * Conglomerate (company) * Conglomerate (geology) * Conglomerate (mathematics) In popular culture: * The Conglomerate (American group), a production crew and musical group founded by Busta Rhymes ** C ...

wholesale company with offices in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

. The company was founded in 1976 and established in 1991 by Iqbal, Bilal and Kamal Ahmed.

History

Seamark was the first company to introduce black tiger shrimps to Europe in 1976. It was founded by brothers; Iqbal, Bilal and Kamal Ahmed. Seamark plc was established in 1991, specialising in the processing and stocking of warm water shrimps, especially the black tiger and the fresh water king prawn. After processing and packing, these were exported to most countries in Europe. Ibco Buildings

Since 1992, Seamark has invested more than £30m in infrastructure and production around the world. In November 2000, they opened a £10 million seafood processing plant at the Bangladesh port of Chittagong. In 2001, they opened a U.S sales office in New Jersey and have since acquired a warehouse and a cold store in Brooklyn, New York to distribute products in North America, including Canada. In 2006, the company spent £12m on new headquarters on a 6.25- acre site in East Manchester when Seamark offshoot, IBCO Food Industries opened. In November 2007, this site was further developed when a Thai restaurant called Vermilion was opened.

Manufacturing and products

Seamark has more than 1,000 products of seafood, poultry, fruit, vegetables, and finger foods. Its offices in New York and Bangladesh imports, processes and distributes frozen seafood and poultry. Its operation in Chittagong, Bangladesh processes products ranging from its traditional shrimps to poultry, dry foods, finger foods, frozen fruit and vegetables, and supplies it to the catering trade. Its business runs a production facility with its own shrimp processing line and

hatchery A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled cond ...

in Chittagong, a deep-sea

fishing fleet A fishing fleet is an aggregate of commercial fishing vessels. The term may be used of all vessels operating out of a particular port, all vessels engaged in a particular type of fishing (as in the "tuna fishing fleet"), or all fishing vessels of ...

in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

, a purpose-built processing plant and head office in Manchester, and a distribution operation in New York.

Operations

Seamark is a £161m-plus worldwide operation with an annual turnover of $250m, and a global workforce of 4,500 people, including 300 at its operations in east Manchester. The production facilities in Bangladesh created 1,000 jobs for the local community. Seamark has a customer base of retailers, wholesalers and distributors throughout the world, with key markets in Germany and the

Benelux The Benelux Union ( nl, Benelux Unie; french: Union Benelux; lb, Benelux-Unioun), also known as simply Benelux, is a Political union, politico-economic union and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighboring states in ...

countries. The Seamark Group of companies has a group turnover of $400m, is the UK's leading importer and processor of shrimps, and has a range of products used by chefs and found in supermarkets across the world. Its exports account for more than 69% of sales and around 50% of all shrimps exported from Britain come from Seamark's processing operations. The company's international sales have grown by 22% a year, from £32.6m in 2009 to £48.9m in 2011.

Awards and recognition

In 1998, Seamark was awarded the

Queen's Awards for Enterprise The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation, sustainable development or promoting opportunity (through social mobility). They are the highest ...

for International Trade. In July 1999, it was awarded the

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

Business in Europe export award. In Bangladesh, the company received a national award and gold medal from the Bangladesh Government consecutively for the years 2001, 2002, and 2003, for the highest export of seafood. In 2012, Seamark was ranked 191 in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, wh ...

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...

International Track top 200 performing private companies in the UK. In February 2016, it was awarded the Outstanding Business of the Year award at the

British Muslim Awards The British Muslim Awards are an annual award ceremony that honours the success and achievements of British Muslim individuals, groups and businesses. It was established in 2013. Overview The British Muslim Awards was founded by Oceanic Consult ...

References

External links