Norwegians buy out salmon farm firms
(From The Orcadian dated November 23, 2000)

Two of the main players in Orkney’s salmon farming industry and another salmon company in Shetland have been sold to the Norwegian fish feed company Ewos.

The fish feed firm is a subsidiary of Statkorn Holdings ASA, which is 80 per cent owned by the Norwegian Government.

The Norwegian company has acquired the Aquascot Group which operates several cage sites in Orkney, including fish farms in the Longhope area, Hoxa in South Ronaldsay, Woodwick in Evie, and off Carness and the Bay of Meil in St Ola.

Rousay-based Mainland Salmon are also being bought over. They own a hatchery and offshore site in Rousay, other cages in Lyness, and have a controlling shareholding in the Orkney Salmon Company, which leases the council-owned processing factory at Hatston.

Ewos managing director Mr Nick Meakin told The Orcadian:: “Our acquisition of Aquascot and Mainland Salmon is consistent with our global strategy. The companies have the same quality ethos as we do. Future production will depend on market demand, but our aim is to continue to produce quality salmon. We do not intend playing “the commodity game”with these companies’ fish farms, which may be the case with our large farms in Chile. We will concentrate on producing quality salmon in Scotland. The organic product attracts a premium, and we believe that the market can take a lot more organic salmon, so we will be looking at developing that concept.”

On the question of staffing and future employment, Mr Meakin was positive. He did not envisage any job cuts, rather the opposite.

“The first logical step in this deal is to quickly arrange for Aquascot to do all their fish processing at the Orkney Salmon Company factory at Hatston, because before, they sent all their salmon to the Scottish mainland for processing. This will increase employment in the processing side of the industry locally, and we intend to take some redundant sites held by these companies back into production which will also mean that more staff will be needed.”

The Ewos managing director added: “In terms of Mainland Salmon, Hugh (Mainland) is retiring from the business, but Bruce (Mainland) is staying on, and will become our sea farms director in Orkney, in charge of all the assets previously owned by Aquascot and Mainlands.

“Management staff from Aquascot will also remain with the new merged company and form the core of the management team. Ewos now owns 100 per cent of the shares in Mainland Salmon, and 95 per cent of the shares in Aquascot with arrangements being made in the coming weeks to acquire the remaining five per cent held by minority shareholders.”

This week’s takeover by Ewos of Aquascot and Mainland Salmon, leaves only four fish farm companies operating in Orkney which are not Norwegian-owned. The largest by far are Orkney Sea Farms, who have works licences for seven sites, spread from Eday in the north through Shapinsay and Rendall, to Toy Ness on the Orphir side of Scapa Flow.

Robbie Rendall of Westray Salmon produces organic salmon at two sites, the Bay of Cleat and Scarfell Point. David Spence of Rysa Farm Salmon also has two sets of cages, in Lyrawa Bay and Pegal Bay in Hoy.

The fourth independent salmon farmer in Orkney is Magnus Spence, whose cages are based in Weddell Sound, Burray.