Loch Duart facts for kids
HQ – Loch Duart Salmon House, Badcall Bay
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| Private Limited Company | |
| Industry | Salmon farming |
| Headquarters | Scourie Sutherland Scotland |
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Key people
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Alban Denton (CEO) Andy Bing (Sales Director) |
| Products | farmed salmon |
| Revenue | £25 million p.a. |
Loch Duart is a Scottish company that raises salmon in farms. It's a smaller, independent business. Their main office is in Scourie, Sutherland, in north-west Scotland. The company has just over 100 employees.
Loch Duart has eight sea farms and two hatcheries. These are located in Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides. They also have offices in Montrose, Scotland, and Lorient, France.
Each year, the company harvests about 5,000 tonnes of fresh salmon. In 2019, a ruling meant they stopped calling their salmon "sustainable" in their ads.
Loch Duart works with a company called Oritain from New Zealand. They use special technology to fight food fraud. This technology can check tiny elements from the loch where the salmon grew. This helps them figure out if salmon sold anywhere in the world is truly from Loch Duart.
Contents
How Loch Duart Started
Loch Duart was started in 1999 by three people: Nick Joy, Alan Balfour, and Andy Bing. The company took over some of Scotland's oldest sea farm sites. These sites were in Badcall Bay and nearby.
When they first started, they could produce 1,800 tonnes of salmon each year. By 2016, the company was producing 5,000 tonnes of fresh salmon annually. This brought in over £25 million in sales each year.
How Loch Duart Farms Salmon
Loch Duart worked with the RSPCA to create a special approval scheme for farmed salmon. This scheme is called Freedom Food. Loch Duart was the first farm to get this approval.
Caring for the Fish
Loch Duart keeps fewer salmon in each pen than most farms. This means the fish have more space to swim. At its busiest, only 1.5% of the pen is fish, and 98.5% is water.
They try to handle the fish as little as possible. Handling can stress the fish. When it's time to harvest, they use gentle methods.
What the Salmon Eat
The salmon at Loch Duart eat a special food mix. This food has a lot of fish and fish oil in it. Salmon are carnivores, meaning they eat meat. The ingredients come from places like the Icelandic capelin fishery. All sources are carefully chosen to be sustainable. The food is also free of genetically modified (GM) ingredients. It is tested very carefully to make sure it has no harmful substances.
No Antibiotics
Loch Duart tries to avoid using antibiotics completely. They use very few other medicines for their fish.
Resting the Farm Sites
After each group of salmon is harvested, the farm site is left empty. This is called "fallowing." Each site rests for 5 to 12 months. During this time, the pens are removed. All signs of farming are cleared away. This allows the seabed to recover naturally.
This method means they produce less salmon than other farms. However, it creates a very clean environment for the young salmon when they arrive.
Keeping Nets Clean
Loch Duart does not use harsh chemicals to clean their nets. These chemicals are called anti-foulants. Instead, they use a "swim-through" system. When a net gets dirty with seaweed or mussels, they lift it out of the water. The fish swim through to a clean net. The dirty net is then left to dry. The marine organisms dry out and fall off. This method helps keep the environment clean.
Controlling Sea Lice
Loch Duart uses a special filtering system to remove sea lice and their eggs. This happens when the fish are sorted and harvested. They also use other methods to control sea lice. For example, they raise and use "cleaner fish" like wrasse and lumpfish. These fish eat the sea lice off the salmon. In the past, they did use chemical treatments often. Information about this is available on SEPA's Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory.
Challenges in Salmon Farming
Like all sea farms, Loch Duart has faced challenges. In their early years, some salmon escaped. This happened because of storms and seal attacks. They have since made their moorings and nets stronger.
Farms can also be affected by nature and human activities. In 2009, a large oil spill in Loch Carnan caused almost a million fish to die. In 2014, a huge group of jellyfish got into nets in Loch Maddy. This led to the death of 300,000 young salmon.
Seals also caused many losses for several years as their numbers grew. Now, where possible, Loch Duart uses special "box-style" anti-predator nets. These nets have an unexpected benefit. They create a safe place for other sea life, like small mackerel and herring. These fish can now be seen in the areas protected by the double-netting system.
Sometimes, young fish in hatchery tanks nip each other's fins. This can happen from boredom or bullying. Loch Duart is solving this by adding artificial reefs and playthings to the tanks. Farmers call this "environment enrichment."
In 2014, the company bought the Salar Smokehouse on South Uist. This allowed them to sell smoked salmon. Later, the smokehouse was returned to local ownership.
Where Loch Duart Salmon is Sold
Loch Duart sends over 60% of its salmon to other countries. They have their own office in France. They also sell to the US, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Loch Duart has become known as a high-quality international brand for fresh salmon. Famous chefs, like Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc, and Rick Stein, have used Loch Duart salmon in their restaurants. Loch Duart salmon was even served at a dinner at Buckingham Palace after the Royal Wedding in 2011. It was also served at the Queen's Jubilee Luncheon in the City of London.
In 2014, the company announced a deal to sell waste products from their farming to a nutrition company in London.
Images for kids
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Pens removed during a fallow period, allowing the seabed to recover.
