Bergen-based salmon fitness firm SalmoBreed — wholly owned by U.K.-based genetics outfit Benchmark — and a host of Norwegian aquaculture interests under the umbrella Salten Stamfisk name are about to take delivery of 30,000 smolt at an under-construction brood facility dubbed Salten Stamfisk.
When finished in late-2018, the 400-million-kroner (US$ 49 million) facility will have the capacity to produce up to 200 million roe.
RAS-system builder Artec Aqua has spent 13 months getting the SalmoBreed Salten brood station ready for 120-gram smolt from SalmoBreed’s breeding unit at Loenningdal near Bergen. Starting this week, the new facility will provide roe to SalmoBreed customers year-round, including outside of the spawning season.
Meanwhile, “families” of 7-kilogram salmon will come from Salten Stamfisk, SalmoBreed’s partner in the facility. These giants will in a year produce the new facility’s roe.
Six, 12-meter tubs will flush saltwater or freshwater through the system or recycle water, so the land-based brood station can use less of the precious resource.
“The facility we’re now handing over is Norway’s and likely the world’s most advanced aquaculture facility,” a press release said of the site’s complexity.
That complexity is partly due to a recirculating grow-out facility, brood unit, roe station, hatchery and smolt unit, juding by a SalmoBreed statement.
In 2016, the owners of Salten Stamafisk were listed as Salten Aqua, Johan Andreassen, Edelfisk and Wenberg Fiskeoppdrett, although Salten Aqua is in-turn owned by Wenberg Fiskeoppdrett, Gigante Havruk, Eldefisk and the very profitable, Gildeskaal Research Station — itself owned by Gigante Havruk and Nova Sea.
The research station alone posted a pre-tax profit in 2016 of 157 million kroner.
