Mowi buys Anglesey lumpfish farm
THE Welsh lumpfish farmer, Ocean Matters, has been bought by Mowi Scotland. The facility, in Penmon, Anglesey, North Wales, has the capacity to produce two million of the cleaner fish, which it has been supplying to the salmon industry in Scotland to control sea lice.
Its main customer is Mowi, which has said it would need to deploy more than two million lumpfish by 2020.
Ocean Matters, formed in 2015 on the site of an old turbot farm, harvested its first lumpfish in 2016.
Production manager Daniel Phillips told Fish Farmer in 2017 that the facility had the potential to produce up to six million cleaner fish.
‘If we can do six million fish in one building we can probably do pretty much the whole UK market,’ he said.
Last summer, the company announced it was planning to double production, having secured a £500,000 loan from the Development Bank of Wales, plus a further £500,000 from HSBC.
Founder and managing director of Ocean Matters, Werner Forster, said: ‘Mowi has been Ocean Matters’ largest customer and collaborator since inception. We’re quite pleased to know Ocean Matters has graduated on to the Mowi family, where it will certainly receive all
the support required to continue on its current path.’
In 2017, Mowi Scotland bought a neighbouring farm, Anglesey Aquaculture, that once produced sea bass, with the intention of farming wrasse.
Dougie Hunter, head of cleaner fish and technical services at Mowi Scotland, said the Ocean Matters purchase ‘provides us increased capacity for cleaner fish production, with great potential for future development as well’.
‘I would like to welcome the new hatchery staff into the Mowi family,’ he added.
Mowi said last month that sea lice on its farms was now under control. The use of cleaner fish is a major part of the successful strategy.