Genuine Scottish salmon, grown in the Middle East…

The fish were supplied as juveniles by Landcatch Natural Selection, based at Ormsary, Argyll, and have been grown to harvest size in tanks by Dubai company Fish Farm.

It plans to sell the first UAE-grown salmon in local restaurants pending deals, and in supermarkets from April 5 after an exclusivity arrangement with Middle East retail chain Spinneys.

‘Salmon the desert’

“We’ve made salmon in the desert, it’s pretty remarkable,” Fish Farm chief executive Bader bin Mubarak told UAE news website The National.

Landcatch began supplying the first of 40,000 fish of around 40-50 grams to Fish Farm’s recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) hatchery at Jebel Ali port in the United Arab Emirates in November 2017.

General manager Dave Danson said the fish were the Landcatch strain produced in Scotland since the mid-Eighties under a closed programme, so were “pretty much Scottish-strained salmon”.

Transporting the fish by air had been quite an undertaking but had proved successful.

Transport tank trials

“The regulations are quite strict. Moving fish, water and oxygen on an aeroplane requires Civil Aviation Authority paperwork, and competent people have to be trained and put in place,” said Danson, who added that Landcatch had used specialist air transport tanks made by Australian company FloatPac.

“We did a lot of trials on the farm with the transport tanks, and got the system honed to where we wouldn’t lose a single fish. It’s a fair distance, 5,000 miles, and it got to the point where it was very, very successful.

“We were doing weekly deliveries of these live fish until they got all of the fish that they needed.

“We moved about 40 separate transport tanks-worth of fish in water on about 14 flights. It was a mixture of sizes, some went as smaller fish and some larger, to get them into the production system so they have staggered production coming through.”

‘Never done before’

As well as live fish from Landcatch, Fish Farm has bought thousands of eggs from Iceland.

From 2020, it will sell the first salmon that are 100% born and bred in the UAE, as eggs from the current stock have already hatched and the fish are in the process of being grown to market size, which is at least 3kg.

“This type of land-based salmon farming in a hot climate has never been done in the world before,” Bin Mubarak told The National.

Based on the Spinneys deal and three arrangements with Dubai restaurants set to be struck this month, Fish Farm aims to produce between 10 and 15 tonnes of salmon each month, although this could increase with demand.

Full environmental control

The initial amount equates to 300 tonnes in 2019, rising to as much as 1,000 tonnes a year thereafter.

Fish Farm has 34 tanks at its facility. Four 20-metre diameter tanks are used for salmon rearing.

“Here in Jebel Ali we can create whatever country we want, be it Japan, Canada – whatever we need,” Bin Mubarak told The National.

“We control the temperature, tides, salinity and depth, and create sunrise, sunset, automatic currents as if it’s a river or sea, and make it as if we have a storm or calm weather.

“It’s the only salmon breeding system in the world with full environment control.”

UAE homegrown salmon is expected to serve – initially, at least – the premium organic market, as its price is 10% to 15% higher than imported salmon, Bin Mubarak said.