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AN independent salmon farmer from the Western Isles has claimed that the new salmon super-giant, which will trade under the Marine Harvest name, threatens jobs and will do nothing to help the development of other companies in the Highlands and Islands.
The merged Pan Fish-Marine Harvest also owns Fjord Seafood, following a series of share deals master-minded over the past year by John Fredriksen, thought to be Norway’s richest businessman. The new company will use an altered Pan Fish logo, with the slogan ‘Excellence in Seafood’ developed by Fjord Seafood.
In a statement issued earlier this week, Marine Harvest CEO, Atle Eide said: “We believe this decision takes forward a significant aspect of each of the three founding companies. It combines new and familiar aspects for everyone and creates a unique, clear identity in the marketplace and strongly indicates our global commitment to the seafood industry and our ambitions to participate in its further restructuring.”
The new company is reckoned by Scottish Executive sources to control under 50% of Scottish production. Highland Council officials claim this does not take account of the Fjord Seafood Scotland stake and they put the figure at 65%. Angus MacMillan of West Minch Salmon in Uist, said the figure was probably closer to 80%.
Mr MacMillan said: “It is closer to 80% when you consider the number of people contracted to all three companies, whether that is in providing equipment services, fish feed, or producing smolts. The use of the Marine Harvest name doesn’t mean too much on a worldwide scale, because most of the buyers of salmon already have established lines of supply. It might mean something in Scotland and to the Scottish Executive because they are probably more familiar with the name Marine Harvest which has been around since the beginning of the industry. What it will mean, however, is that there will be fewer workers in areas such as the west Highlands, the Western Isles and Shetland in the long run. They will shut down farm sites to increase efficiency and no one else will have access to them.”
The merger was approved by the UK Competition Commission nearly two weeks ago, and will give the new company farming and processing operations in Norway, Scotland, Canada, Chile and the Faroes, with marketing and processing facilities in France, Australia and Japan. The merger will make it the undisputed world leader in farmed salmon production.
Pan Fish Scotland, the Scottish arm of Pan Fish, will be hived off as a free-standing company which could be listed on the Oslo stock exchange, or it could be sold to an existing company. At the time Atle Eide refused to give any commitment on jobs, and Western Isles councillors are seeking a meeting in Norway early in the New Year to clarify Marine Harvest’s plans.
Angus MacMillan warned they could have a wasted journey. “The company has said nothing either way on jobs, and even if the councillors meet company officials face to face they might still get nothing from them. But we saw before when Marine Harvest bought Stolt Seafarms that they closed their own Stornoway factory and the factory in Scalpay as well as a number of farm sites. Something similar will happen again. The problem is they won’t release the unused sites to other producers. They’ve got the best, the highest producing and the easiest sites to work, but what they do is take in Norwegian work boats to do the grading, harvesting and net changing. The amount of local employment is declining and that will continue under Marine Harvest,” he said.
Fjord Seafood has around 100 workers in the Western Isles, where Marine Harvest also has farming sites, 70 of them employed in the last salmon processing factory left in Lewis. Nutreco bought Marine Harvest McConnell in 1999 and Hydro Seafood in 2000 and in 2003 it closed its processing factory in Stornoway and moved processing to Fort William with the loss of 80 island jobs.
In September 2004, Nutreco and Stolt-Nielsen merged their fish farming activities and in May 2005, the £10m state-of-the-art processing factory in Scalpay, which received £6m in public sector grants, was closed with the loss of 60 jobs. There are fears that in addition to reducing farm site jobs, Marine Harvest will concentrate processing in the Fort William facility, and the Stornoway factory will close.
Mr MacMillan said: “There is a big question over the future of the Stornoway factory. Last summer there was talk that the farm sites on the west coast of Lewis in Loch Roag, and in West Loch Tarbert in Harris would be closed. If that happens the Stornoway factory will definitely close. The Planning Bill gives local authorities an opportunity to do something about this to ensure that if Marine Harvest closes sea farm sites, these will be made available to other, independent companies."
In 2005, Pan Fish Scotland produced around 13,000 tonnes, expected to rise to 16,000 tonnes for 2006. It has 169 employees and 31 sea sites from Loch Eriboll in north-west Sutherland to Loch Fyne in Argyll, as well as a number of freshwater sites, two hatcheries and a processing facility at Carndow on Loch Fyne. Marine Harvest employs 540 people in Scotland and produced 35,000 tonnes of farmed salmon in 2005, but hundreds of jobs have gone gradually as automatic feeding stations and other capital equipment have replaced fish farm crews.
Should fisheries be closed during breeding time to allow stocks to reach more sustainable levels?
