November 3, 2022

Mowi Scotland team work around the clock to transfer smolts to sea

A Mowi Scotland team of ten in Loch Lochy, Scotland, the United Kingdom, had been working around the clock recently to transfer out smolts to Mowi Scotland's sea farms at Maclean's Nose, Camus, Greshornish and Gorsten, the company said.

"For the past few years, Loch Lochy has been successfully putting to sea 30% of Mowi's annual smolt production," Sandy MacKinnon, farm manager at Mowi Scotland's Loch Lochy site, said. "As the number of smolts has increased, we have adapted our operations at Loch Lochy to become more efficient. Possibly the most significant change is that we now take in a higher percentage of vaccinated parr which allows us to focus more heavily on the smoltification stage, ensuring great fish go to our seawater sites for the next growing phase in their lifecycle."

Another change to the operations at the Loch Lochy site is its loading area. Originally built in 2010, it was designed to meet Mowi Scotland's requirements at that time where a much smaller well boat was used for smolt transfers and a maximum of eight lorries would leave the site each day. Modifications have been made to the loading yard working area to increase efficiency and capacity to handle a higher volume of fish more efficiently and it leaves the capacity for further improvement.

"The area has now been concreted and set in a way to ease loading and unloading," MacKinnon added. "It allows for the truck drivers to gain better access to the site and load more easily. We have also changed from small noisy petrol driven water pumps to electric submersible pumps which self-prime and aren't prone to freezing during winter months. The counting tower has been upgraded to be more comfortable given the amount of time spent there throughout the year. The next phase in the upgrade is to adapt the end of the loading pontoon to make it easier to change over cages during loading."

The upgrade to the loading area has been completed by the team at Loch Lochy. Not only has this saved money, but it also resulted in a bespoke site designed by the team that operates it each day.

The scale of the upgrade is as impressive as the volume of smolts leaving Loch Lochy with over 20 lorry loads of concrete poured, four artic loads of large building blocks and over 1,000 tonnes of earth moved back along with retaining support put in along the shoreline, Mowi Scotland said.

Following the completion of the smolt transfer, the site will lie fallow throughout November.

- Mowi Scotland