Scottish Sea Farms makes Highlands and Islands investment

Scottish Sea Farms is to install new filleting lines at its premises in Argyll and Shetland, with support from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

 The company, which supplies almost one fifth of Scotland's salmon production and has a workforce of around 325, plans to upgrade its filleting and packaging processes to meet future market demands.

The new facilities, costing around £3m, will see the installation of highly sophisticated equipment at both South Shian near Oban, and Scalloway in Shetland so that fish can be filleted and ready for distribution within two hours of leaving the sea. New packaging equipment will enable the company to use vacuum packed, re-usable containers bringing environmental improvements to the current practice of using polystyrene boxes.

Gordon Drummond, SSF processing manager at Scalloway explained: "The origin and quality of our product is an important factor for our clients so we are constantly seeking ways to improve these aspects. This investment will allow us to cut packaging costs and reduce our environmental impact through the use of the re-usable containers."

And in Oban, SSF processing manager Donald Buchanan added: "Traceability is becoming increasingly important in the food and drink industry. This new equipment will allow us to track all the fish we supply to the particular farm where they were grown, giving greater reassurance to our buyers and consumers."

HIE development manager Colin Mclean said that SSF is an excellent example of the type of company HIE wants to support.

He said: "We are very pleased to be assisting SSF to improve its operations in Highlands and Islands.

"In future HIE will have a more concentrated focus on companies such as SSF which is looking to grow its ambitions globally and this investment will make a significant contribution to its primary objective - to export a quality product to niche markets around the world.

"The global salmon market grew at around 10 per cent between 1995-2005. Farmed salmon therefore represents a high growth industry and an important contributor to the Scottish economy."

HIE is contributing a development grant of £100,000 to each of the sites.