INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF CHILEAN SALMON AQUACULTURE

Over the past two decades aquaculture has emerged as the preeminent source of salmon. The development and evolution of salmon aquaculture in Chile illustrates changes that have taken place to a greater or lesser extent in other salmon producing regions. Although initially comprised of small independent firms with heavy reliance on foreign technology and production inputs, the Chilean salmon aquaculture industry has evolved into a horizontally and vertically integrated complex of interdependent suppliers, producers, processors, distributors, and supporting entities. The structure and organization of industries evolve over time in response to changes in the price and availability of inputs, changes in the demand for outputs and output attributes, and changes in technology. The growing demand for traceability and assurance is a change in the demand for credence attributes. Firms that are able to organize to provide traceability and assurance at low cost will, ceteris paribus, have an advantage.