Tasmanian salmon farmer opens ground-breaking plant
AUSTRALIA’S federal minister for employment Eric Abetz and deputy premier and minister for primary industries and water Jeremy Rockliff opened the new facility alongside Huon Aquaculture founders Peter and Frances Bender.
Peter Bender said the opening, at Parramatta Creek near Devonport on the state’s north¬-west coast, marked a major milestone for Huon by bringing its value added processing operations to Tasmania for the first time.
The company relocated its smokehouse from Adelaide. Its salmon farms are in southern Tasmania.
‘This smokehouse and product innovation centre is part of a four-year, $160 million controlled growth strategy for the company which is delivering increased production capacity and efficiency while reducing our environmental footprint,’ said Bender.
Around 100 jobs were created during the construction of the facility and it has opened with 70 new employees already on board.
‘We have always believed that Tasmanians have the skills and ability to grow an industry that leads the world in innovation and we are committed to investing in the region and the people who live here, either through direct employment or the use of Tasmanian firms.’
Bender said that the construction of the new facility utilised more than 100 local contractors from when the project started in March last year.
Frances Bender said the new smokehouse and product innovation centre is one of the most advanced in the world and will greatly assist Huon in its innovative approach to product development.
‘The reputation and demand for Tasmanian produce is growing continuously, both within Australia and through international markets,’ she said.
‘This facility is a crucial step in ensuring we are taking the highest quality, innovative products to market, all proudly carrying the Tasmanian brand.’
She told ABC News that the operation was ‘one of the few places in the world that whole fish will come in in one end and smoked salmon and pate will go out the other’.
‘It can actually be harvested that night, trucked to the site, processed and straight into the value¬added smoking process, before the product has gone into rigor.’
The federal government contributed $3.5 million towards the company’s expansion, which has doubled the previous size of the facility.
The company has installed a wet processing line, smokehouses for cold and hot smoked production, machinery for pin boning, skinning, portioning and packaging fish.
A new suspended walkway across existing and new processing facilities enables staff to access departments without cross ¬contamination.
Customers and visitors can also view various stages in the value¬ adding process.
Huon’s general manager of processing, Scott Nolan, said the factory is also using some innovative techniques.
‘We cook and smoke at the same time. Our smokers are really advanced and we push the smoke in from the sides so that means the whole trolley is consistently smoked.’
Nolan, who was involved in developing the Blar Mhor processing facility at Marine Harvest in Scotland, moved to Tasmania nearly 10 years ago. He said value ¬adding is creating new markets for the business.