Salmon farmer granted £1.8m to help fund semi-closed containment trial

Salmon farmer Mowi Scotland has been granted almost £1.8 million towards the £5.2m cost of trialling semi-closed containment for post-smolt rearing at operational scale.

The grant is one of the largest made from the £16m-plus Marine Fund Scotland 2026-27.

In total, 99 seafood and aquaculture projects will share in the Scottish Government funding, supporting an estimated 122 jobs in coastal and island communities, the Scottish Government announced today.

Mowi Scotland, which expects to harvest around 70,000 gutted weight tonnes of salmon this year, also receives £102,000 towards the £339,000 cost of the purchase and installation of Scotland’s first water and gravity feed delivery system. 

‘Scottish steelhead’ producer Kames Fish Farming receives £272,000 towards the £544,000 costs of creating a juvenile rainbow trout farm in the Trossachs, and Orkney and Shetland salmon farmer Cooke Scotland receives £75,950 to cover the full cost of developing and testing a novel application of ultra-high-frequency side scan sonar to map Priority Marine Features such as maerl, addressing a recognised evidence gap in marine habitat assessment.

Reducing azamethiphos

Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University receives £161,000 for a project that aims to deliver a scalable photocatalytic reactor which will enable a reduction of 90-95% of the salmon lice treatment active ingredient azamethiphos prior to discharge. This is expected to reduce treatments to 3-4 days, improving treatment flexibility and lice control outcomes.

Salmon sector trade body Salmon Scotland has been granted £50,000 for its Scottish Salmon Label Rouge marketing programme that markets high quality salmon in France and elsewhere, and Borders salmon secondary processor Farne Salmon & Trout receives £160,640 towards the £1.4m cost of the purchase and installation of automated fish processing machinery.

Shellfish

A number of shellfish producers have received grants for equipment, and Robert Gordon University gets £437,000 for phase 4 of work to develop field testing for shellfish toxins.

The University of Glasgow receives £219,000 to meet the full cost of creating the first mobile Integrated Multi Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) hatchery, which represents a new way of combining existing technologies into a single, transportable system improving survival of flat oyster larvae.

Similarly, the Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) receives £67,880 to meet the full cost of the freezing and storage of biological material to enable banking of gametes and larvae to preserve native oyster stock.

Vitally important sectors

The Scottish Government’s marine and islands minister Jim Fairlie said: “Our seafood and aquaculture sectors are of vital importance to our coastal and island communities and a crucial contributor to Scotland’s economy, so it is great that this £16m round of the Marine Fund Scotland will support projects that aim to create a total of 122 jobs. This fund has awarded over £86m to 499 projects since 2021, generating more than £185m investment.”

The breakdown of 26/27 awards across both direct & competitive awards:

Aquaculture                                           £5.4m

Sea Fisheries                                         £4.7m

Seafood Processing                               £2m

Marketing                                               £1.8m

Recreational fishing & Wild Salmon        £1.5m

Marine Litter                                           £0.5m

Other (marine planning, conservation)    £0.4m