Saving Seafood

Report shows Cooke salmon farming supports island life in Orkney and Northern Isles

August 19, 2022 — As one of the largest employers in Orkney and Northern Isles, Cooke Aquaculture Scotland has released an economic impact report showing that the company’s salmon farming operations are having a significant positive social impact on their employees and community viability of the remote islands. The report is titled Cooke Aquaculture Scotland and Orkney: A summary of our impacts for people and communities.

Including bonus and overtime payments during period 2020-21, a striking fact from the report notes that Cooke’s skilled, permanent jobs, are paying 24.8% more than the Orkney average and 8.6% above the average for Scotland.

  • Average salary in Orkney: £28,132
  • Average salary in Scotland: £32,344
  • Average Cooke farm salary in Orkney: £35,112

All the company’s local investment is having real-life impacts in Orkney and Northern Isles:

  • supported local businesses and jobs
  • maintained local populations
  • sustained the uptake of local schools, ferries, shops and cafes; and
  • created ongoing operational spending with local businesses.

“When we first came to Orkney in 2014, as a family-owned company we understood immediately that the jobs we provided mattered – really mattered. They keep people and their families on the islands, attract new people to live here, and help businesses to thrive and schools to stay open,” said Joel Richardson, Vice President of Public Relations for Cooke Aquaculture Scotland. “We have never forgotten that and now we employ 122 people in Orkney, 51 of them on our farms. That includes 25 new jobs created in 2016-2021, all of them helping to keep remote communities viable.”

Orkney salmon farming sites tend to employ 4-5 people each in full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs. For the remote islands especially, a new farm can be transformational in terms of tackling local depopulation. As the only salmon farmer in Orkney to process farmed fish locally, Cooke employs over 41 people at their processing and packing facility in Kirkwall.

Read the full report here

Scotland’s seafood industry fears a return to border chaos

May 19, 2022 — The U.K. government’s intention to introduce new legislation that makes swift changes to the post-Brexit rules surrounding the checking of goods at the Irish border has drawn fire from Scotland’s seafood industry, particularly the farmed salmon sector.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the House of Commons on 17 May that the Northern Ireland Protocol, introduced in 2021, had caused unforeseen problems, including “unnecessary bureaucracy” for goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Truss said that a proposed Northern Ireland Protocol Bill would mean that British goods destined for sale in Northern Ireland would only have to meet U.K. standards, and not those of the European Union. She said that while the government’s preference is to reach a negotiated outcome with the E.U. and that months of talks had already taken place, the urgency of the situation meant that the government would be prepared to act without reaching such an agreement.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Scottish salmon exports return to pre-Brexit, pre-COVID levels

February 15, 2022 — Exports of farm-raised Scottish salmon, the United Kingdom’s most valuable food export, recovered to near-record figures in 2021.

According to official HMRC figures, overseas sales of salmon in 2021 increased by 36 percent year-over-year to GBP 614 million (USD 832.7 million, EUR 732.4 million), just GBP 4 million (USD 5.4 million, EUR 4.8 million) short of 2019’s all-time high.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

In Scotland, Serving Halibut for a Better Planet

November 30, 2021 — Inver restaurant is but a speck on the longest sea loch in Scotland. From its windows, a diner can see the remnants of a 15th-century castle and the rolling hills of the Highlands, but the breakout star is not the view. It’s a meaty halibut head that the chef Pam Brunton grills over wood and finishes with melted homemade ’nduja and a tangle of grilled green onions.

The small halibut she butchers have been raised in sea-fed pens on the Isle of Gigha, a nearby community-owned island whose farmed halibut have become the darling of people who care a lot about where their fish and shellfish come from.

Ms. Brunton, who could be Alice Waters’s Scottish niece, runs Inver with her partner, Rob Latimer. The tiny restaurant and inn is about 70 miles from Glasgow, where in November heads of state, including President Biden, thousands of diplomats and a flood of environmental activists like Greta Thunberg gathered for COP26, the United Nations global climate conference.

Ms. Brunton’s halibut heads may not seem like much of a hedge against the catastrophic effects of fossil fuel and methane gas emissions, but a group of cooks and diners here say that putting sustainable Scottish seafood on the plate is at least one tangible (and delicious) move toward a better planet. The shift is away from fin and shellfish whose populations are threatened by climate change or harvesting practices.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Scottish salmon producers defy border chaos with record EU exports

May 17, 2021 — Scotland’s salmon farmers exported a record volume of fresh fish to E.U. markets in the first-quarter of 2021, overcoming the significant post-Brexit supply disruptions experienced in the first weeks of the year.

According to figures compiled by the Scottish Salmon Producers Organization (SSPO) – from information supplied by all of the country’s salmon producers – some 19,410 metric tons (MT) of fish, worth more than GBP 100 million (USD 116 million, EUR 141 million), were exported to the E.U. in Q1 2021. This volume represented an increase of more than 8,200 MT or 74 percent over the corresponding period of last year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FIS looks to satellite tech for new opportunities to elevate Scottish seafood

April 21, 2021 — As part of its strategy to advance the sustainability and prosperity of Scottish fisheries, Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS) has commissioned Edinburgh, Scotland-based company Space Intelligence to conduct “blue sky” research into the potential benefits of utilizing satellite technology within the sector.

With Space Intelligence specializing in Earth observation and transforming satellite data into actionable information, the project will encompass a “pioneering review” of the role that satellite technology could play in supporting Scottish fisheries, FIS said, adding that this is the first time that a satellite technology company has supported the sector in this way.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New seafood task force to tackle UK export problems

February 8, 2021 — A new task force has been set up by the government of the United Kingdom to help resolve export issues that have disrupted Scotland’s seafood sector following the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December, 2020.

The Scottish Seafood Exports Task Force will meet every two weeks with representatives from the U.K. government and the catching, processing, and aquaculture sectors, starting this week.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Millions made available for Scotland’s struggling seafood sector

February 3, 2021 — Scotland’s seafood sector is gettting a boost from the government as the industry continues to struggle with both the COVID-19 pandemic and trade issues caused by Brexit.

The new GBP 7.75 million (USD 10.4 million, EUR 8.7 million) funding package offers support to Scotland’s fishermen, seafood businesses, and ports and harbors, all of whom have been threatened by the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus as well as the United Kingdom’s exit from the E.U., the Scottish government has confirmed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scottish seafood industry seeks government support in wake of Brexit fallout

January 20, 2021 — Scottish Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing has pressed the United Kingdom’s government to increase its support for the Scottish seafood sector as it struggles to come to terms with the challenges of trying to export products to European Union markets following the introduction of the new Brexit trade agreement on 1 January.

U.K. exporters have faced lengthy delays in transporting goods to Continental Europe due to the new customs and export certification requirements laid out by the terms of the non-tariff barriers in the trade agreement. With the COVID-19 pandemic already affecting both national and international trade, and also significantly curtailing the hospitality trade, this latest obstacle has caused considerable additional concern for those moving seafood and other perishable products, Ewing said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK government blamed for seafood border disruptions

January 13, 2021 — The inability of the U.K. government to establish a trade agreement with the E.U. well before the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December, 2020, and a failure to include a bedding-in period that would have allowed exporters to adjust to the new demands, are the main reasons why seafood businesses are encountering disruptions at the border, according to Scottish Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing.

On 24 December, negotiators from the E.U. and the U.K. reached an agreement on a new partnership, which set out the rules that have applied between the two parties since 1 January, 2021. It covers such areas as trade in goods and services, fisheries, ensuring a level playing field, internal security, and the U.K.’s participation in E.U. programs, Ewing said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source