GROWING demand for salmon of Scottish origin has seen one of the country’s biggest producers grow earnings per kilogram before interest and tax to £1.65 from just 39p in the first half of last year.
The Scottish Salmon Company continued its recovery from the biological challenges of 2016 which saw full year EBIT per kilo fall to 3p.
For the first half of 2017, it grew net operating revenue by a quarter, to £72 million.
The company, which is based in Edinburgh but listed on Oslo’s Bors stock exchange, said demand for “premium quality Scottish salmon across the globe has never been higher”.
Chief executive Craig Anderson said: “We have maximised the opportunities this provides, evidenced by a record half year performance.”
Growing demand for Scottish salmon pushed up prices, leading earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) per kilogram – the common currency of salmon market reporting – growing more than 300 per cent.
Full year revenue for 2016 was £110m, following a first half of £57.6m.
Harvest volume in the half decreased to 11,617 from 13,123 because of the knock-on effects of the biological challenges experienced during the second half of 2016.
The “unprecedented mortalities” the company faced in 2016 has led to £9m being invested in improving the biological situation this year.
Mr Anderson noted 120 additional staff had been hired on farms to work on reducing mortality rates caused by the likes of gill disease and sea lice. It has also included the purchase of a hydrolicer, which lifts fish out the water and cleans sea lice off them.
In site development, The Scottish Salmon Company has been granted an additional 2,000 tonnes of consent at a site in Portree, Skye, doubling its operations at this site. Smolt will be stocked in third quarter of 2018, with first harvests anticipated in late 2019.
In June, Scottish Salmon acquired the hatchery business of Sunbeam Aquaculture, a longstanding supplier of smolt.
The company said market conditions remained strong, with exports accounting for 52 per cent of sales, up 10 percentage points on last year.
This is the result of a strategy implemented by Mr Anderson when he arrived at the business in 2013. He said the company had spent the last three years “treading the boards in many different countries” to help win contracts with overseas buyers.
Mr Anderson recently returned from Japan and South Korea as part of a salmon delegation led by Scottish Development International.
Japan is a strong market for The Scottish Salmon Company, with three shipments per week heading to the country.
“The partnerships we have developed with Japanese companies are very strong, and we expect sales to increase there – our salmon is known as sushi salmon in Japan,” said Mr Anderson.
North America is another key market and sales to the region improved four fold, said the company.
The period also saw Scottish Salmon introduce its native Hebridean salmon to market. This strain is a result of its own broodstock programme and Mr Anderson said it would help capitalise on the demand for Scottish provenance, particularly in the US.
Full year harvest target remains at 25,000, which Mr Anderson said the company would be looking to increase from 2018.
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