August 23, 2013
Cooke Aquaculture is preparing to build a new hatchery at Mink Cove, Digby Neck, and looking at prospective sites for a Shelburne processing plant.
And the firm''s Truro feed mill is now churning out thousands of tonnes of fish feed every year, said Chuck Brown, communications manager with
Cooke Aquaculture.
Every week, 320 tonnes of salmon feed come to Digby from the Truro feed mill, he said. That''s 10 tractor-trailer loads every week or 12,500 tonnes/year.
"We expect that to double in the next few years," he said.
Cooke bought the feed mill about five years ago and has been ramping up production, Brown said.
Cooke uses fish by-products from the wild fish industries in its feed, he said.
"Our reliance of fish ingredients has actually gone down quite a lot in the last 10 years. We''ve been able to reduce the amount of fish that goes into our feed by about 70%. We still need those fish ingredients because that''s what give our salmon the omega-three content that''s so valued by consumers, but we are finding suitable replacements for the fish ingredients."
Cooke uses different animal proteins, like poultry by-products and even seaweed, in feeding trials. It produces a lot of by-products but doesn''t use them in its own feed. They go into pet and mink feed, said Brown.
The firm plans to open the Shelburne processing plant in 2015. More than 300 people are expected to eventually work at the Shelburne processing plant, he said.
The Digby Neck hatchery is under construction now, at Mink Cove.
It will be land-based and use recirculating water, similar to Cooke''s hatchery in Swanger Cove, N.L., where it produces about three million small fish annually, weighing 100 grams each.
Its brood stock fish come from a flagship hatchery near St. Stephen, N.B.
"These are fish that spend their entire life in the hatchery. They grow to about four years old, … then we spawn them there to produce the eggs."
The Mink Cove hatchery should be up and running in 2014, he said, and will likely employ a dozen or more staff. And Cooke''s expansion plans in the province is good news for the Digby ferry. Brown said it expects to increase its current use of the ferry by six-fold.