AKVA wins contract for Cooke hatchery

Aquaculture technology business AKVA has been awarded a contract to design and build Cooke Aquaculture's new post-smolt salmon hatchery in Nova Scotia.

The hatchery is for Cooke subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon. The facility, in Centreville on Digby Neck, Nova Scotia on Canada's Atlantic coast, is projected to produce three million salmon a year, from egg to the post-smolt stage, for Cooke's salmon farms in the region.

Approval for the Digby Neck hatchery was granted by the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture in March 2021.

Joel Richardson, Cooke Aquaculture's Vice President of Public Relations, said at the time, 'We have been sustainably operating Atlantic salmon farms for over twenty-three years in Nova Scotia for food production, and our aim is to grow responsibly by taking a coordinated, thoughtful, science-based approach and going through all the appropriate licensing and permitting steps.

'We were pleased to see so many of the businesses, organisations and local governments who we have worked with over the years express support of our growth in Nova Scotia.'

The contract will be worth €14.3m (£12.14m) to AKVA. Design work will start in August 2022, with commissioning in Q4 2024.

The Digby Neck hatchery represents a halfway point for what Cooke says is a CAN $56.8m (£36.61m) investment programme in Nova Scotia.

Cooke said it is expected that the hatchery will take three years to build and create more than 450 construction jobs, and once operational it will require approximately 16 new full-time, year-round Kelly Cove Salmon positions, and another 18 indirect and induced jobs.

For more information about AKVA visit the website, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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