A London, England-based start-up is planning a 5,000-metric-ton land-based Atlantic salmon farm in the historic fishing town of Grimsby, U.K., which currently serves as the U.K.’s major seafood-processing hub.
Dubbed the New Clee Aquaculture Facility, the 40,000-square-meter development will include a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) farm, an integrated processing unit, a water treatment plant, and a feed storage unit. It will be built on undeveloped land previously used as rail sidings.
The facility will house freshwater tanks for the early life-cycle stages, and sea-water tanks to take the fish from their smolt stage through to market-ready fish weighing four to five kilograms. Total water usage will be approximately 1,000 cubic meters of fresh water and 1,000 cubic meters of salt water, both of which will be extracted from boreholes.
The company, which was incorporated in September 2020,plans to invest GBP 75 million to GBP 100 million (USD 90.2 million to USD 120.3 million, EUR 85.2 million to EUR 113.6 million) to develop the farm over the next two years, a spokesperson for Aquacultured Seafood told SeafoodSource. “The project, which has received excellent support from businesses and politicians, will feature cutting-edge technology and become one of the most environmentally friendly ways of producing nutritious food. It will position the U.K. as a world leader in the modern aquaculture industry,” the spokesperson said.
The farm will have an expected effluent production of up to 1,000 cubic meters daily, which “will be treated to a very high standard, using the best-quality water-filtration technologies developed by AquaMaof to produce treated effluent that is very low in nutrients and suspended solids,” according to the plans.
The proposal mentions making use of “several water treatment patents and filtering techniques to cut water consumption in the fish production process,” and the incorporation of a range of measures to conserve resources, limit pollution, and ensure no environmental damage.
“By recirculating the culture water, the water and energy requirements will be limited to an absolute minimum,” the proposal said.
In the U.K., Scotland dominates the salmon-farming sector, where the sea-cage industry contributed GBP 760 million (USD 914.2 million, EUR 863.4 million) to the local economy in 2021, according to industry body Salmon Scotland. Aquacultured Seafood aims to change this balance and to unlock the commercial and financial potential of salmon farming in England, the company’s spokesperson said.
Directors of the company, which was first registered in September 2020, include Craig Anderson, former managing director of the Scottish Salmon Company, Mike Berthet, former fish and seafood director at Brakes and currently head of E.U. market development for the Global Seafood Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program, and Three-Sixty Aquaculture and Fowey Shellfish Co. Director James Fox Davies. All bring a wealth of experience to the new project and are committed to RAS farming as a means of attaining enhanced control, reduced maintenance, and improved sustainability credentials for the company’s salmon-farming operations, the spokesperson said.
Others with a stake in the company include corporate broker Merlin Partners LLP Principal Stephen Matthew Clarke; Merlin Partner Neil Jamieson, Cutting Edge Events Director Mark Edgley; Merlin Chief Compliance Officer Maria Luiza de Freitas, Damus Capital Partner and Merlin Advisor Desmond Woods, and Blackstone Managing Director Andrew Dowler.
The plan for the project was officially submitted for initial consideration by the North-East Lincolnshire Council in December 2022 and included a full set of technical assessments relating to potential impacts, plus reports outlining the mitigation measures that will be taken to make the planned facility acceptable to regulators.
The company’s agent, Montagu Evans, argued in its submission to the council that the project would not need an environmental impact assessment (EIA), “based on the assessment that the proposal is unlikely to have significant effects on the environment, taking account of potential mitigation.”
However, the EIA has become an issue for the project’s opponents. Opposition from local residents has focused on their perceived need for an EIA to be completed.
Image courtesy of Montagu Evans on behalf of Aquacultured Seafood
