Tassal rides love affair with salmon

ATLANTIC salmon farmer Tassal has recorded a 19 per cent increase to $50.3 million in net profit after tax for the 2017-18 financial year.

Tassal managing director Mark Ryan said revenue grew by 13 per cent to $509.5 million.

“Tassal’s operating model, favourable market dynamics and key investments in environmentally responsible programs, quality infrastructure and fish growth had delivered record financial year revenue and operating results,” Mr Ryan said.

He said the company spent $292 million with 630 Tasmanian suppliers and businesses.

There was also a record wages and salaries bill on the back of 220 new jobs created across regional communities in the past 12 months.

“We were equally pleased to announce positive results for environmental and sustainability initiatives, including retaining the globally leading Aquaculture Stewardship Certification [ASC] across all harvest leases,” he said.

Mr Ryan said demand continued to outpace supply growth, with salmon sharing a larger portion of Australian dinner plates.

“Despite a challenging summer 2017-18 for salmon growth with warmer conditions for the industry, Tassal’s continued focus on fish health, risk mitigation, research and development, and selective breeding underpinned strong fish performance and forecast supply to meet growing consumer demand,” he said.

“There is a global trend towards more sustainable, ef- ficient sources of protein, which is driving an increase in demand for salmon.

“To fulfil this increase in demand, Tassal has strategically invested in growing the size of our fish through our selective breeding program, remote feeding strategy and optimising the input and harvest timing of our salmon.

“A key competitive advantage is our strategic investment in technology and infrastructure to enhance production efficiency and risk mitigation.

“Our major technological initiative implemented during FY18 was our remote feeding strategy, centralised from Hobart.”

Tassal’s result comes a week after rival Huon Aquaculture announced a record net profit after tax of $35.4 million for the latest financial year.