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| 15 May, 2008 |
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| Should other nations follow Alaska's lead in using aquaculture as part of a fishery enhancement programme? |
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Fish farm company expands to Western Isles 17 April, 2008 -
Scourie-based Loch Duart Ltd was founded in 1999, and its salmon now features on the menus of a significant number of prestigious restaurants, including those run by TV chefs Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein. The company says that demand for its salmon is increasing and the expansion is required for a 30% growth in production to satisfy the market. Nick Joy, managing director said that the company's aim is to produce salmon which tastes better than wild salmon, by raising them to the highest welfare and environmental standards. He said that by taking over the two new sites, they were moving into an area rejected by larger companies who considered the sites to be too small. “Our sales have grown worldwide and we have been under pressure for some time to find suitable farming sites which meet our rigorous standards. We are starting farming in Uist and our smolts are already in the water. Uist is ideal for us because there is good clean water, sheltered sites and a good, vibrant community with experienced and enthusiastic staff available,” he said. The company’s production methods include full-year fallowing of sites similar to rotational land farming, no anti-fouling treatments on nets or moorings, no antibiotics fed to the fish, fish feed comes from sustainable sources and adherence to the ISO 14001 environmental management system. Mr Joy added: “We have taken over two sites at the moment, where we expect to produce 1,800 tonnes of salmon. The sites could produce more but we don’t push them to their full production capacity. Our aim is to produce salmon that people want to eat. I have just had a message from a woman in Philadelphia, who said she’d bought some of our salmon and it was the best she’d ever tasted, including wild salmon. That is what we aim to achieve.” Loch Duart employs 65 people and has created seven new jobs in Uist already and more will be created as the two sites progress. It has also appointed Alan Anderson, a former director with WISCO and Fjord Seafood Scotland, to oversee the Western Isles operation. Nick Joy said that good husbandry of the fish came first, and that often meant higher staffing ratios than was deemed cost-effective by other companies. Loch Duart Ltd was the first salmon farmer approved under the RSPCA’s farm assurance Freedom Food scheme. He said: “People don’t give a second thought to buying a more expensive mobile phone, but if the price of food increases they quite often object. We have to realise if food is cheap, it usually means it has had an impact on the environment and the animals, or fish, have had less of a good life." “Consumers are increasingly looking for ‘provenance’ in all farmed food”, said Andrew Bing, Loch Duart sales director. “Our markets have been developed by finding customers who are prepared to pay a bit more for their salmon. The combined production from these sites still forms a tiny fraction of European market demand and allows us to sell on a very personal level. A considerable number of our customers have been to our farm, been out to sea to see the salmon and have got to know the staff. They like the way that the salmon are reared and like the way that Loch Duart salmon tastes.” The company expects to produce over 4,000 tonnes of salmon this year, rising to 5,400 tonnes next year when production from the Uist sites comes on stream. The company, along with a number of other independents, is keen to get access to more redundant sites. Local sources say that Marine Harvest has abandoned production at a number of sites in the Western Isles which were deemed to be too small to be cost-effective. So far there is no sign that they would be willing to transfer these sites to the smaller companies at an affordable price. www.fishfarmer-magazine.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publishes FISHupdate.com, FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.
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