Former Scottish Salmon Co chief in bid for RAS facility in Grimsby

Former Scottish Salmon Company chief executive Craig Anderson is part of a team planning a £100 million on-land salmon farm at Grimsby Port.

Aquacultured Seafood Ltd wants to build the 5,000-tonne-capacity recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility on waste ground that was previously used as a railway siding, and has asked North East Lincolnshire Council for its opinion on the proposal.

According to documents supplied by property consultants Montagu Evans on behalf of the company, the land-based farm would use freshwater and saltwater tanks and would include associated systems such as water treatment plant, a fish processing line and a feed storage unit.

Boreholes

Montagu Evans said the development would require approximately 1,000m³ per day of fresh water and 1,000m³ per day of salt water.

Freshwater would be provided via existing ABP (Associated British Ports) infrastructure, from its independent ground water supply boreholes at Grimsby Port.

Salt water will be abstracted from a borehole constructed at the site, to target saline groundwater within the underlying chalk and/or limestone aquifers.

“The potential impacts to both quantity and quality of water resources are low,” said the consultants.

AquaMaof

Up to 1,000m³/day of effluent will be generated from the facility, and would be treated to a very high standard using water filtration technologies developed by Israeli RAS expert AquaMaof, Montagu Evans stated. The effluent water will be discharged with surface water through an outfall located within the ABP/Anglian Water ownership.

The site is sandwiched between the Humber estuary and a residential area which is separated from the site by a railway line.

Montagu Evans said the salmon farm would not generate significant noise or light emissions.

Quiet operation

“Operational requirements necessitate the aquaculture facility to be a dark and quiet operation, kept away from any significant noise sources to avoid stresses to the fish,” said the consultants.

“Any proposed processing plant is intended to be placed in buildings with suitable noise reduction and control measures, ensuring no detrimental impacts on the surrounding environment.”

According to documents available on the Companies House website, Aquacultured Seafood Ltd was incorporated as a private limited company in September 2020. It has a company secretary, Maria Luiza de Freitas, and five directors: Stephen Matthew Clarke, Michael Berthet, James Fox-Davies, Neil Matthew Jamieson, and Mark Edward Kennedy Edgley.

Three-Sixty Aquaculture

Fox Davies is a director of Three-Sixty Aquaculture Ltd, which runs an on-land fish farming facility located at Swansea Docks, and is also a director of Fowey Shellfish Company Ltd, which runs an organic mussel farm in Cornwall. He was chair of discontinued Aquaculture Leadership Group of the UK seafood marketing body Seafish.

Craig Anderson, who left the Scottish Salmon Company after it was bought by Faroese company Bakkafrost, was appointed a director on 12 August 2022.

"Aquacultured Seafood plans to build a state-of-the-art 5,000 tonne per year salmon facility in Grimsby employing approximately 100 people at the new facility. The project will boost economic growth as the company invests approximately £100 million into the project over the next two years," said a spokesperson for the company.

"The project, which has received excellent support from businesses and politicians, will feature cutting edge technology to become one of the most environmentally friendly ways of producing nutritious food."