A Promising Local Enterprise

by Margaret Fleming

We had a chance to visit one of Puerto Peņasco's interesting cottage industries last month. It was a small fish-processing plant located in what looks like an ordinary residence on a side street. The front room was a sales office with a counter and a couple of freezers. The owner, Sergio "Gino" Nuņez, welcomed us and led us in through a side entrance to the processing section of the building. The main room had a large table, a sink at one end, and a counter along a side wall holding scales, mixers, knife racks, measuring cups, and other culinary aids. Everything was spotlessly clean--from the white tiles on the floor to the gleaming white walls and countertops.

The fish plant uses mostly flounder and makes fillets, fish burgers, and fish sticks, breaded and ready to cook. In the kitchen at the rear Gino showed us several large freezers with shelves full of the finished products, vacuum sealed in plastic bags and frozen. He even gave us samples to take home. What the plant does is to bread the fillets and sticks with seasoned crumbs so they can go directly into hot oil and be cooked. For the burgers, seasonings and crumbs are added to ground fish and pressed into flat patties. They too can go directly from the package to the pan. As soon as we got home, we tried our samples, and they were delicious. John was surprised at how good the fish burger was--an excellent combination of fish and seasonings. Gino provides these products to many of the local restaurants.

Gino belongs to an old Peņasco family. He is related to the owners of the Costa Brava Restaurant, whom we've known for a long time. And he has known Romeo Torres, our Gato Negro associate of long standing, for many years. Sometimes it seems to us that Romeo went to school with half the population of the city, and with the brothers and sisters of the other half.

Gino wants to keep the plant operating, but he is short on capital. He really needs to enlarge his building and to invest in more equipment to streamline the process, but it is very expensive. So he is looking for a joint venture to help finance what he needs. John was intrigued by the possibilities of this enterprise for an investor. It looks as if the payoff would be substantial. Anyone interested can call John at (800) 252-9231 in the U.S. or Romeo at (520) 226-4267 toll free or (638) 383-6099 in Puerto Peņasco.

We are glad to know that industry in Puerto Peņasco is becoming more diversified, and to be able to tell potential investors that there are more possibilities than restaurants, curio shops, and real estate.