The Duravant family of operating companies serve the food processing, packaging and material handling segments.
MARELEC Food Technology has been active in the food processing industry since 1983. We make the major trawl control systems and other marine electronics in the maritime world. Our experience and know-how regarding fish weighing and sorting systems result in powerful, reliable systems that weigh and sort fish perfectly on shore as well as at sea. The unique features of our systems are robustness, high speed, precision, and custom design, which have applied equally to the poultry and meat systems for many years.
MARELEC Food Technologies designs and manufactures high-tech portioning, weighing, grading and control systems for the fishing and food industry to optimize the efficiency of manufacturing processes.
Our team of enthusiastic engineers and designers are responsible for the development and production of our systems. Our network of international distributors in over 50 countries is available whenever a MARELEC customer needs advice, rapid delivery, or the best possible local after-sales service.
We deliver our systems across the world, and pay great attention to the individual requirements of our customers.
In 2018, we doubled the space of our production facility in Nieuwpoort, where everything started, to 6500 m² in order to cope with growing worldwide sales and demands for MARELEC weighing and portioning solutions. We expanded our R&D offices and we built a fully equipped and cooled demo room to welcome potential customers. This is a unique way to prove the performance of our equipment.
In 2007, a salmon processing firm in Chile challenged MARELEC to develop a portioning machine. The goal was to cut salmon into fixed-weight portions, irrespective of the shape of the salmon. This technology makes it possible to maximize the efficiency of the primary materials, while increasing yield and reducing loss. In 2008, the first portioning machine was launched The MARELEC PORTIO had become a reality. It soon became clear to us that it was not only fish that needed to be portioned. We developed the necessary adaptations and options for portioning meat and poultry at an accelerated pace and these markets formed the basis for the rapid growth of MARELEC.
Since we had the technology for weighing on board of ships using motion-compensated scales, it was a logical step to develop sorting systems for use on board. This solution created small factories on board of ships, where fish is sorted by weight, even before the ship has landed onshore. It gave considerable competitive advantages over the other ships that still needed to sort everything onshore. A MARELEC sorting machine on board quickly became a "must have". The weighing and grading technology was soon introduced to other industries on land. MARELEC successfully enters the poultry and meat processing industry. Flexible, reliable, precise and tailor-made solutions, considering the specific demands of every customer soon became a trade-mark for MARELEC.
In 1991, MARELEC designed the ultimate weighing system for use at sea: the motion-compensated marine scale. The technology in the marine scale compensates for a ship's motion to provide accurate measurements. Weighing under the worst conditions at sea has become a reality.
It all started at sea. MARELEC's first activities involved manufacturing traction control systems for use on board fishing vessels. A MARELEC trawl control system measures the forces in the cables and controls the winches when a net becomes stuck in order to prevent the ship from capsizing. The benefits of this innovative development were soon appreciated by fishermen because of increased safety and higher efficiency. Fishing vessels are still equipped with these unique systems today. MARELEC stands for "MARine” and “ELECtronics”.
