Yell plant proves productive
Cooke Aquaculture Scotland's new processing plant on the island of Yell is now running smoothly at full capacity, much to the delight of Willie Young.
The company’s Business Support & Primary Processing Director tells Fish Farming Expert: “We put the first trial fish through in late February and early March, and the site was properly up-and-running by the end of April.
“Since then it hasn’t skipped a beat – there have been no technical problems or hitches and it has been comfortably processing an average of 15,000 (and up to 17,000) fish a day.”
The Mid Yell site is equipped with three automatic Baader lines, as well as one manual line, and has more than doubled the 7,000 fish capacity of the previous facility. The rate of processing is all the more impressive given that the factory only runs for a maximum of 8 hours in every 24.
“We have to work so that the fish are ready in time for the Lerwick ferry,” Willie explains, “which means we can only operate 7-8 hours a day.”
Logistic efficiency
The increase in capacity means that the Yell site – which is on the site of a former crab factory – can process all the salmon the company produces in Shetland, negating the need to send a proportion down to Kirkwall, in Orkney.
“The vast majority of our sites in Shetland are in the Yell and Unst area,” points out Willie, “we’re growing 13-14,000 tonnes nearby, which means that most harvested fish are under an hour steam to get here. The logistics are so easy and we can harvest when we want.”
“The fish come in by sea to Cullivoe, then have a short journey by tanker. We no longer need to use harvest bins and forklifts, which is a great improvement, because that was so labour intensive,” he adds.
The new site employs about 50 people, up from the 29 who operated the old one. And, although it took a while to recruit the extras, the team has now gelled, according to Willie.
“Previously we mainly employed people from Yell and Unst, but we now bus people in from the Shetland Mainland too,” he says.
Future-proofing
Should the company continue to increase its production in Shetland – which it plans to do – the Yell factory should be able to cope.
“About a third of the floor space is still empty,” says Willie, “which means we would be able to fit in more lines.”
And Willie feels that the facility is in good hands, despite the fact that the manager of the company’s previous plant on Yell, Gilda Johnson, retired shortly before the new plant opened.
Indeed, Willie managed to persuade Dave Bugh from Cooke’s Kirkwall site to oversee the final stages of the build and manage the new facility, while two understudies from within the company are being trained up to take over in Orkney.
