Expansion plans for Scottish Salmon Company 6/2/12
The Scottish Salmon Company plans to create about 50 jobs in the Western isles over the next five years.
The fish farmer’s five-
The Scottish Salmon is currently in the process of scoping, consulting on and lodging planning applications for new fish farming sites.
In the past two years, the Company has more than doubled staff numbers from 160 to 380 and invested £30 million on developments such as refurbishing the Marybank processing facility and developing new sites and upgrading existing sites.
It also took over West Minch Salmon but shut its Benbecula factory with the loss of local jobs. Uist salmon is now transported to Lewis for processing.
The firm also faces accusations that of roughshod treatment towards a South Harris community which claims that building an “industrial” sea farm at Plocropol threatens local fishermen’s livelihoods and will harm tourism.
Last year, the company reported it had produced 24,000 tonnes of salmon. Its ambition is to increase this number to 40,000 tonnes in 2016.
An infrastructure investment of between £1.5m and £2m would be required to develop each of the sites. All sites will be developed to the RSPCA’s ‘Freedom Food’ standard which governs farming principles such as the stocking density, fish welfare and harvest.
The Scottish Salmon Company currently operates from over 50 sites and in 2010 it recorded an annual turnover of £92.4m.