Good morning.
On behalf of Cooke Aquaculture and our affiliated businesses, both the aquaculture and fisheries sectors, I thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today.
We are headquartered on the east coast of Canada in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, which is just a short drive from here. The Cooke family founded this company just over 30 years ago. They had humble beginnings with a single marine site containing over 5,000 fish. Since 1985, the company has seen remarkable growth through acquisitions and has become the largest vertically integrated salmon-farming company in North America with operations in Atlantic Canada and Maine.
The family also owns a major sea bass and sea bream operation in Spain, as well as a salmon-farming company in Chile and a salmon-farming company in Scotland. In addition, the family recently expanded its interest in the fisheries sector by purchasing the Wanchese Fish Company based in Virginia, and Icicle Seafoods, which is based in Seattle, Washington, and has three business units: wild salmon; a ground fishery in Alaska; and a salmon-farming operation in the state of Washington.
The Cooke family businesses employ 5,000 people globally, including more than 1,500 people here in Atlantic Canada. We expect to generate $1.8 billion in annual sales in 2016. With global production of 275,000 tonnes of seafood, we export to more than 30 countries around the globe annually. Even though we have grown to be a global seafood company, we remain deeply rooted in Atlantic Canada. Our global expansion has strengthened and secured Canadian management and administration jobs in coastal and rural Atlantic Canada.
As it stands, the Cooke family has a worldwide network of cold storage and distribution facilities. We are consistently focused on vertical integration and diversification in terms of geography, products, and markets. Our strategy has been to achieve growth through acquisitions and organic growth in the seafood sector that are both sustainable and meet market demands.
As an Atlantic Canadian seafood company, we have global operations in Canada, the U.S., Scotland, Argentina, Spain, and Chile. We have sales offices in Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and thus fully support the Canadian government's participation in the TPP. The Cooke group of companies regards this partnership as an essential component of our future success. We compete on a global scale, and with this partnership, we see the promise of trade opportunities in various export markets.
Our current trade with TPP countries is approximately half a billion dollars in fresh and frozen seafood. One of the most significant attributes of this agreement is that it would give us a competitive advantage over our rivals in non-TPP countries. In the past, we have supported similar initiatives, such as the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement.
As a leading Canadian supplier of seafood, we believe we will benefit from the implementation of the TPP. The ease of access to markets such as Japan, one of the largest seafood markets in the world, will prove to be extremely beneficial to our business and our contribution to the Canadian economy overall. We also look forward to achieving access to markets in countries like Vietnam as we look for ways to further diversify our product portfolio and geographic expansion.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today to express our support for the TPP.