Small fry firm comes on in leaps and bounds
It has its roots in the fjords of Norway, and its interests extend to a number of salmon farms along the west coast of Ireland.
Marine Harvest Ireland had a turnover of €55 million in 2011 and produced 11,000 tonnes of salmon, 85% of which was exported.
“Marine Harvest Ireland has been in operation for over 30 years,” says technical manager Catherine McManus. She explains the Munster branch of the operation came into being when the company bought the salmon farm operation of SilverKing Seafoods in Castletownbere, West Cork in 2008.
Marine Harvest Ireland started in Donegal, founded by a Dublin schoolteacher and his friends who had moved west for a change of lifestyle.
Fish farming didn’t exist in Ireland then, and it was to Norway that the fledgling industry turned for technological and financial assistance. McManus explains: “At that stage, they advised the company on very basic technology associated with hatching and the life cycle, basically how to hatch eggs and bring them on from fry before you put them out to sea. The Norwegians had already developed systems for that at the time, and it’s still developing.”
Once the knack of raising the salmon to juvenile fish had been learned, the company and the industry in Ireland developed. The first salmon harvest took place in 1984. There were 10 employees. Today, Marine Harvest Ireland employs 272.
The Munster operation consists of three sites in Bantry Bay, and a fourth in Co Kerry. All their stock is Atlantic salmon, and the company has its own “closed herd” of fish bred through their breeding programmes. Excess eggs are exported— an important spin-off industry.
