Kjøper West-Minch Salmon

The Scottish Salmon Company har kjøpt opp selskapet West-Minch Salmon Limited.

West-Minch Salmon Limited er et ledende uavhengig lakseoppdrettsselskap med base på Ytre Hebridene i Skottland, opplyser The Scottish Salmon Company (SSC) i en børsmelding.

SSC har overtatt 100 prosent av aksjene i West-Minch Salmon Limited, det bekrefter SSC overfor fish.no.

Under avtalen vil elleve lokaliteter i South-Harris, North Uist og Benbecula bli overført til The Scottish Salmon Company. 

West Minch Salmon vil fortsette handelen i sin nåværende form, og avtalen vil regulere en smidig overføring av aktiviteter og eiendeler, heter det i meldingen. 

- Avtalen markerer et betydelig skritt framover for The Scottish Salmon Company som har gjennomført en stor omorganisering de siste 18 månedene. Den utvidede aktiviteten underbygger selskapets planer om å skape en stabil og bærekraftig virksomhet i bygdene på Hebridene og utvikle det Hebridiske kvalitetsmerket, skriver SSC i meldingen.

The Scottish Salmon Company Limited (SSC) var tidligere et datterselskap av Lighthouse Caledonia ASA, men ble i forbindelse med restrukturering av konsernet, gjort om til nytt morselskap.

Les også: Scottish Salmon noteres i dag 08.07.2010
Les også: Har overtatt Lighthouse Caledonia 03.07.2010

West-Minch Salmon Limited selger produksjonen gjennom salgsselskapet Hebrides Harvest (følg lenken for å lese mer om oppdrettsselskapet).

Hebrides Harvest*

Hebrides Harvest is the marketing company of West Minch Salmon Ltd based in Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland. From the “edge of the world” we pride ourselves in producing the highest quality organic seafood with a remarkable taste and texture. Our unusual climate makes for ideal farming conditions e.g. individual sea lochs with strong tides and currents – as well as wind surfing!”
We have been farming salmon in the Outer Hebrides for over 20 years with sea sites located in Harris, North Uist and Benbecula. Our emphasis is to differentiate our product, particularly for smoking grade for organic for that specialised sector. Hebrides Harvest is one of the few remaining independent farms operating in Scotland that can provide this distinction.

We supply a top quality product and service to all of our customers, who range from international seafood suppliers and large supermarket chains (both in the UK and Europe) to small independent retailers and specialist restauranteurs, all who are individual in their requirements for fresh, filleted or smoked salmon.

Isle of Harris

The east side of Harris is famous for rugged scenery. On a grey day it can feel like you have been transported to the moon. Along this coast is known as the Bays of Harris. The road that links the bays to the main road running through Harris is known as the "golden road". It is "golden" on account of the amount it cost to hew the road out of the rock over a century ago. It requires a strong nerve to drive the lorry loaded with salmon from the farm along this winding single track road!

Habitation on the east of Harris was traditionally in fishing villages where sheltered piers could be built. The landscape is so rugged and inhospitable that fishing and crofting were about the only way to reap a living from the area. There are less boats fishing out of Harris now but the piers are also used for the fish farms that are an alternative form of employment.

Our fish farms are set in the rocky inlets or bays. These inlets are sea lochs which have deep water with excellent flow and strong currents. The names here are influenced by the Norse heritage to the islands - one of our fresh water sites, Loch Laxadale appropriately enough comes from the Norse for “valley of the salmon”.

Isle of Benbecula

In the past the Uists comprised of a number of islands that were only able to be reached one to the other over fords when the tides were low. Benbecula, the “Mountain of the Fords” is the island between North Uist and South Uist and in the 1950s and 1960s causeways were built joining North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist together.

Our processing unit is based at Gramsdale on the island of Benbecula overlooking the causeway to North Uist. We are ideally situated to process fish farmed from the three islands - we also take fish from our Harris sites by boat to be processed at Gramsdale.

We have two sites on the east of the island of Benbecula at Uiskevagh and Petersport. Uiskevagh is the Gaelic for water and Petersport is several minutes from Uiskevagh by boat.
 
Isle of North Uist

Our site at Locheport was our first organic site, and is overlooked by Mount Eaval on the island of North Uist.

In the past, Locheport was the loch that the puffer boats used to visit from Glasgow bringing supplies for the north island.

The Story of Angus and West Minch*

West Minch Salmon Ltd was established in 1985 as a fish farm on the Isle of Benbecula, by Angus Macmillan. Fish farming is an important employment provider in the Hebrides and Angus continued to expand his own farms on Benbecula and over the years, acquired sites on the island of North Uist and on the island of Harris.
In 1991 he took over a factory at Gramsdale, Benbecula that was previously used for packing shellfish. He converted it to allow salmon to be gutted, filleted and packed on the island so that it could be dispatched less than 12 hours after harvest.

Around the same time that Angus was setting up his farms sites in Benbecula, a cooperative of independent fish farmers formed to market and sell salmon. This company was called Hebrides Harvest. Over the years many of the small farmers who made up the co-operative were bought out by multinational food businesses and in 2004 Hebrides Harvest came under the sole umbrella of West Minch Salmon Ltd operating as our sales and marketing division.

West Minch Salmon Ltd has achieved a lot since those early days including:

• We have our own contracted hatchery, 5 freshwater and 7 seawater sites throughout the Outer Hebrides.
• Our organic salmon has been certified by the Soil Association since 2001 which is the most prestigious organic. accreditation body in the UK.
• We are certified with their European counterparts, Eco-cert.
• We are one of Rick Stein’s Food Heroes.
• We were one of the first fish farm companies to achieve Freedom Food certification which we still hold.
• We have an accredited Environmental Management System to ISO 14001:2004.
• We operate a Quality Management System which ensures our customer receive the necessary assurances expected in this quality driven sector.
   

Our emphasis is to differentiate our product, particularly for smoking grade for organic for that specialised sector.

Hebrides Harvest is one of the few remaining independent farms operating in Scotland that can provide this distinction.

(*Kilde Hebrides Harvest).