Freshwater veteran to lead Mowi broodstock and big smolts projects
Mowi Scotland’s long-serving freshwater manager John Richmond is to lead the company’s moves to produce home-grown ova and post-smolts of up to 800g.
Richmond, who has been with Mowi since 1999, has taken on a new role of broodstock and post-smolt development manager. He will be responsible for the design, tendering, procurement, construction, and commissioning of the planned new broodstock and post-smolt facilities.
Richmond will also determine how the facilities will work alongside the overall production plans at Mowi Scotland and recruit and train new staff to work in the facilities.
800g smolts
“The broodstock facility will allow us to produce our own ova that we will use in our hatcheries to start the production process. We currently buy these from Mowi Ireland and third parties,” said Richmond in an article on Mowi Scotland’s website.
“We plan to build a seawater recirculation system for post-smolts where the fish will then be grown on from the standard smolt size of around 110g to between 350g and 800g before being delivered to sea farms.
“Our objective in post-smolt production is to shorten the length of time that the salmon spend in seawater farms, which will reduce exposure to potential pressures from sea lice and other pathogens. This new strategy will also allow any seawater site using post-smolts to harvest more fish due to the shortening of the production cycle thus allowing more cycles than before within the same timeframe.”
He added: “I am looking forward to seeing how these systems can change and benefit Mowi. I think that our post-smolt production strategy could revolutionise salmon production and help us overcome many of the challenges we have been struggling with for years.”
Dan Phillips, formerly Mowi Scotland’s cleaner fish production manager, is replacing Richmond as interim freshwater manager.
