THE head of salmon farming giant Marine Harvest, Alf-Helge Aarskog, has said the company has faced challenges in Scotland in 2018 but is making good progress in tackling them.
While Marine Harvest has suffered a sharp fall in profits in Scotland, Mr Aarskog underlined the company’s commitment to the country as it pursues its ambitious growth plans.
Read more: Setback in Scotland for salmon farm giant
Speaking after Marine Harvest revealed it was rebranding as Mowi to help it build recognition in global markets, Mr Aaarskog said Brexit was not expected to impact on investment in Scotland.
“We have had a challenging year in 2018 (in Scotland) but as we see the business now we are in much better shape than at the beginning of the year,” said Mr Aarskog.
He said the fall in profitability was driven by two main factors which the Norwegian company is addressing.
The volume of salmon harvested in the current year has fallen as a result of the fact the company stocked fewer young fish in 2016 into 2017.
Marine Harvest expects volumes to grow significantly after it stocked more young smolts in recent months.
Mr Aaarskog noted that Marine Harvest has also had challenges regarding diseases such as sea lice infection.
“We didn’t hide that we have had some issues around sea lice in 2017/18,” he said.
However, he added: “Looking at the business now and how we are going today we have the lowest mortality that we have had in Scotland for many, many years.”
Read more: New move to quell row over salmon and sea lice
Asked to comment on criticism of salmon farming by environmental groups, he said: “Some of our critics will never say we are doing enough,” adding: “If we have an issue we try to find solutions to it.”
Mr Aarskog said Marine Harvest has invested in using Wrasse to act as cleaner fish and in technological approaches to tackling disease.
On the proposal made last week by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency for regulation of the sector to be tightened, Mr Aarskog said: “Regulation is not necessarily a bad thing for the industry, the most important thing is that it’s based on science.”
He highlighted the contribution that Marine Harvest makes to the Scottish economy noting that its employee numbers have increased to around 1,250 in the country.
Read more: Scotland's salmon windfall exceeds £1bn amid boom in sales and production
The company has 49 seawater fish farms and five freshwater loch sites across the Highlands and Islands and a processing plant in Rosyth in Fife.
It has opened farms off the isles of Rum and Muck in Scotland this year.
“If we can do similar in years to come that would be good,” observed Mr Aarskog.
The company opened a hatchery at Inchmore in the West Highlands in June, which replaced a smaller facility.
An £80m feed plant is expected to open at Kyleakin on Skye in the first quarter of 2019.
With Marine Harvest operating farms in countries stretching from Norway to Chile and selling fish in 80 countries, Mr Aarskog said the company believes in the benefits of free trade.
He does not know how the consequences of Brexit will play out.
However, asked if Marine Harvest had any plans to cut investment in the UK in response to Brexit, Mr Aarskog said: “No, we do not.” He added: “We don’t foresee anything now that would change our mind.”
Announcing record third quarter results last month Marine Harvest noted the value of salmon consumed in the key UK and German markets had increased.
Group operating earnings rose to €207m from €194m in the same period of 2017, with high prices in all markets driven by strong demand. Earnings in the Scottish business fell to €12.3m from €25.4m.
Mr Aarskog said the rebranding would help the company to communicate its integrated value-chain from feed to the consumer’s plate.
Marine Harvest was originally founded as Mowi by Norwegian aquaculture specialists more than 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, Scottish Sea Farms has announced plans to open a new £48 million Freshwater Hatchery at Barcaldine near Oban.
The plant will supply smolts to SSF’s 40 farms across Scotland’s west coast, Orkney and Shetland.
Scottish Enterprise provided £1.28m research and development support for the plant. The agency said work done there will help SSF tackle a range of challenges affecting the fish farming sector, by enhancing fish health and welfare and improving its environmental credentials.
Scottish Sea Farms managing director, Jim Gallagher, said: “Researching and developing new approaches and technologies is key to ensuring that we continue raising the healthiest fish in the most responsible but also the most environmentally sustainable way."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here