COOKE APPOINTS JOHAN BROUWER AS MANAGING DIRECTOR OF MORUBEL AND EXECUTIVE FROZEN SALES LEADER FOR EUROPE September 5, 2023 – Ostend, Belgium – Cooke Inc. is pleased to announce that Johan Brouwer has been appointed as the new Managing Director of Morubel and Executive Frozen Sales Leader for Cooke Europe. Morubel is the leading shrimp processor in Western Europe that cultivates, processes, packs and distributes shrimp and other seafood products. Morubel distributes its market-leading organic and frozen products to retail, foodservice and food industry customers across Europe. Based in the Netherlands, Mr. Brouwer is a 25-year veteran in seafood and brings significant experience in foodservice, retail sales and account management. He is joining Cooke from Veramaris, where he was the director of business development. He previously held roles at Seafood Connection (Maruha Nichiro Group) and Marine Harvest (Mowi) and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Global Shrimp Forum. Mr. Brouwer will report to the COO for Cooke Europe and will be responsible for overseeing all business operations and sales and marketing. The Cooke family of companies has diversified operations in Europe including Bioriginal Europe/Asia B.V. in The Netherlands, Cooke Aquaculture Scotland, Cooke Aquaculture Spain / Grupo Culmarex, Northeast Nutrition Scotland, and Morubel. Cooke’s core purpose is ‘To cultivate the ocean with care, nourish the world, provide for our families, and build stronger communities’. Contact Joel Richardson Vice President, Public Relations Cooke Inc. / for Morubel 40 Wellington Row, Saint John, N.B. E2L 3H3 M: +1-506-721-1093 / T: +1-506-694-4938 joel.richardson@cookeaqua.com www.morubel.be / www.cookeseafood.com
MORUBEL ACQUISITION BY COOKE August 9, 2022 – Cooke Inc. (“Cooke”), has acquired Morubel N.V. (“Morubel”), the leading shrimp processor in Western Europe that cultivates, processes, packs and distributes shrimp and other seafood products. Morubel distributes its market-leading organic and frozen products to retail, foodservice and food industry customers across Europe in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and France. Morubel’s wild catch product range includes Argentina red shrimp, tropical prawns and shrimp, Vannamei prawns, crayfish, and squid. The company supplies farmed aquaculture including Black Tiger prawns, northern prawns, mussels and scallops. Morubel delivers products with full traceability of its global supply chain as well as multiple sustainability and food safety certifications. Founded in 1954, Morubel was acquired in 2014 by Bencis Capital Partners, an independent investment company with offices in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Düsseldorf. Morubel’s 14,000 square meter plant in Ostend, Belgium has a production capacity of 18,000 metric tonnes for frozen seafood, retail, and bulk packaging with opportunity for increased growth. Ostende is the largest city on the Belgian coast, famous for its delicious seaside cuisine. “Morubel’s focus on developing sustainable, new added value products and continuously focusing on innovation was an attractive complement to our European seafood offerings,” says Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “We’re very excited to welcome Morubel’s 100 employees to Cooke. The plant staff, sales and management are exceptional, and they have formed longstanding customer relationships by being a flexible and reliable supplier with consistently high quality and short delivery times.” The Cooke family of companies has diversified operations in Europe including Cooke Aquaculture Scotland, Northeast Nutrition Scotland, Cooke Aquaculture Spain / Grupo Culmarex, and Bioriginal Europe/Asia B.V. in The Netherlands. Globally, Cooke harvests and sells 30% wild seafood and 70% farmed seafood and has in-market European sales representatives. “Team Cooke had a strong presence this spring in Barcelona at Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global, the world’s largest seafood trade fair. The Morubel team welcomes the sale to Cooke – we’ve found an ideal alignment to enable our future growth,” says Dirk De Pandelaere, CEO of Morubel. “We see a lot of opportunities to expand our product line to sell additional Cooke products in European countries where Cooke is building its presence.”
This was SEG 2017 As every year, we were present at the Seafood Expo Global in Brussels from the 25th until 27th of April. This was the first year we presented ourselves as the shrimp group Shore. Focus on our chilled seafood range, own organic vannamei and machine peeled North Sea shrimp were well received. We had a beautiful stand, loads of visitors AND we were finalist in the Seafood Excellence Global awards with our fresh clean label North Sea shrimp. Talking about a successful edition!
Joint venture Morubel/Ristic and the Dutch Telson 26 April 2016 GBC, owner of the Belgian Morubel nv and the German Ristic GmbH becomes co-shareholder of the Dutch Telson B.V. GBC will take a participation of 50% in Telson B.V. This means that the group of companies with a strong position in frozen tropical shrimp with Morubel and Ristic, now also accesses the chilled segment. From this combination a wider range of shrimp can be offered since Telson is mainly active in the field of unpeeled and peeled North Sea shrimp (Crangon crangon), also known as brown shrimp. Moreover Telson has a unique position in machine peeled North Sea shrimp. For this, the company works exclusively with GPC Kant, who designed and developed the peeling machines. Telson, now still based in Leens, will move together with the company of the Kant family soon into a new building in Lauwersoog, the Netherlands. After 25 years of intensive development specifically aimed to increase efficiency, the machines are now so sophisticated that in the near future a 100.000kg of shrimp will be machine-peeled per week in the brand new production area. In a few years a further capacity increase might be feasible. This is a major breakthrough in the field of machine peeled North Sea shrimp making a return trip to Morocco no longer necessary for a considerable volume of shrimp. With this development, the group of shrimp companies takes another important step in the area of sustainability: PURE BUSINESS in all its aspects. The management of the joint venture will consist of Rob Pikkert, current Director of Telson B.V. and Edo Abels, MD of Morubel nv and Ristic GmbH. In addition, thanks to the contribution and long experience of the Nienhuis family we can claim a strong combination of forces. Joint venture Morubel/Ristic and the Dutch Telson
Morubel nv joins forces with German Ristic AG March 3rd, 2016 GBC, owner of Morubel nv, and Peter Ristic, owner of Ristic AG, based in Germany announced today that they have reached an agreement for the acquisition of all outstanding shares of Ristic and the Costa Rican entities by GBC. After completion of the transaction and approval of the relevant authorities, Morubel and Ristic will join forces and become the leading party in the European frozen shrimp market with a unique sustainability proposition. The activities of both companies are highly complementary: Ristic has a solid position in farmed shrimp, with own production facilities in Costa Rica and Morubel is leading in the segment of wild-caught shrimp. But there is also a perfect match in their business approach: for both companies sustainability forms an integral part of business policies. The combination of Morubel and Ristic activities will therefore give customers and consumers better access to a broader variety of sustainable and responsible products. Since both companies offer their products mainly under private label, practical implications for customers are rather limited. Moreover the different company brand names will be maintained. Ristic employs approximately 275 people in Oberferrieden in Germany and the companies in Costa Rica. Morubel in Oostende, Belgium employs 107 people. The new combination will be led by Edo Abels, the current CEO of Morubel. Ristic founder and majority shareholder Peter Ristic will stay on as Managing Director of Ristic AG. Closing of the transaction is still subject to approval of the relevant authorities and may be expected in the second half of March 2016
A new shrimp in our product portfolio! New in our product assortment is the Argentine red shrimp, Pleoticus muelleri. This beautiful red coloured cold water shrimp caught along the Argentine coast has a firm texture and sweet taste. Available as whole shrimp, unpeeled tails, easy peel or peeled pud or pd shrimp. See our product section for more information, or contact our sales department. Packed under your brand, Morubel retail brand or Elite foodservice brand.
Morubel Statement on slave labour producing shrimp in Thailand. June 12th 2014 In view of the recent press information on labour abuse by the company CP Thailand and in response to any questions our customers have concerning the origin of their products supplied by Morubel, we can confirm that we did not buy any shrimp or prawns in Thailand at all during the last 14 months. Morubel is a member of BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) and we are committed to have social audits with our suppliers in risk countries. Social compliance is an improvement process and compliance cannot be guaranteed in one go, but through social auditing corrective action plans can accurately be addressed and controlled, and further steps in the supply chain can be taken.