Cooke Aquaculture will open a farmed Atlantic salmon processing plant in early 2009 in Machiasport, Maine.
Mike Cooke, COO of Cooke USA, speaking at yesterday's dedication ceremony for the National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center in Franklin, Maine, said the company has invested more than $60 million in Maine's aquaculture industry.
"Over the past four years we have established a strong reputation for our company and for the aquaculture sector," said Cooke. "Our company's five-year plan for Maine is to produce 16,000 metric tons of farmed salmon, to fully implement crop rotation and to continue to take an environmentally responsible approach for our operations and to open a viable processing plant in 2009."
Cooke added that its Maine operations produced 3 million fish in 2007 and had no incidents of escapes or infectious salmon anemia, a disease that once devastated Atlantic Canada's salmon farms and is now affecting Chilean salmon farms.
The salmon farming company, which is based in St. George and Blacks Harbor, New Brunswick, acquired Atlantic Salmon of Maine and its assets in 2004.
