Scotland’s £80m feed revolution
Marine Harvest has announced that it intends to build a £80 million feed factory in Scotland to serve its operations in the UK, Ireland and the Faroe Islands.
The site, whose exact location is still to be decided, will have a 170,000 tonne capacity and its range of products will include starter feed for freshwater and organic feed for the company’s Irish operations. Construction is due to start in 2017 and the plant to be operational by 2018.
While an investment of this scale is great news for the Scottish economy, the news is unlikely to be welcomed by Skretting and BioMar, which currently provide the feed for Marine Harvest Scotland’s operations and whose contracts are now destined to expire in the first half of 2018.
Steve Bracken, Business Support Manager for Marine Harvest Scotland, told Fish Farming Expert: "We are delighted to receive this high level of investment for Scotland which is a clear commitment of support in growing our Scottish business. The fact we will also export salmon feed means this development will be good for Scotland plc."
The plan has been inspired by the success of the company’s first feed plant, which opened in the Norwegian town of Bjugn during 2014 and a press release issued by the company explains: “The main reason was that feed is a significant part of the cost of producing salmon. The factory at Bjugn has over the past 18 months proven to be a success. Operational excellence and effective transportation and logistics have been key contributors to the good results. Today the factory covers approximately 80% of our Norwegian feed requirements.
“We see, however, that third party European feed purchases remain significant, within Scotland, Ireland and the Faroe Islands as salmon farming centres where we today are 100% supplied by external feed companies. A second feed factory is therefore in line with the strategy of being a fully integrated protein company”.
