The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
How salmon makes it to the top tables
A salmon farmer gets up with the sunrise – and cooks his catch at the end of the day
NIGEL MCCLURE’S office is a shed overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and his commute from his home in the historic village of Glenarm, County Antrim, takes roughly two minutes. He starts at 8am each day, leading a team of seven as farm manager of Glenarm Organic Salmon, whose headquarters are on Viscount Dunluce’s estate. The main draw of the job is, he says, the beauty of his workplace. ‘I’ve seen every sunrise and sunset for years.’
Born in Antrim, Mcclure, who is 42, joined the business in 1995 as a net repairman and adored being at sea. When he and his wife, Carol, had their three children (now aged 17, 18 and 24), he spent the weekends fishing with them on his small boat. ‘They loved it,’ he says. ‘They still complain that they don’t get to go out enough.’
His main job is tending to the salmon. There are several farms, located a mile from the shore, each divided into 14 pens and stocked with 20,000 salmon between them. Mcclure feeds the salmon by hand, two or three times a day: ‘It’s an organic and sustainably sourced diet of fish oil and meal.’
Once a week, Mcclure and his team harvest a group of salmon. (By this point, the fish will have been in the sea for 17 months.) ‘We’ll stop feeding them for three days prior, to make sure there’s no meal in the belly cavity,’ he explains. Then, Mcclure gently takes the fish out of the water in a sweep net and stuns each individually, before cutting the gills and placing them in harvest bins of iced water.
Back at bay, the salmon are loaded into a refrigerated lorry and sent for gutting and cleaning, before they’re packed into boxes and shipped to UK fishmongers and supermarkets – Glenarm is the main supplier of Waitrose Duchy Organic Salmon – or sent abroad as far afield as France, the US, Dubai and Nepal. ‘The salmon is harvested on a Wednesday and with our customers on Friday or Saturday – and that’s including those in America,’ says Mcclure.
The main challenge of the job is the weather. During the winter months, Mcclure wraps up in layers – thermals, oilskins, life jackets. ‘They keep you dry, although we all end up with colds.’
After a long day, the first thing Mcclure does is strip off his oilskins and make a cup of tea. ‘We put the kettle on and get warmed up. The guys are quite fond of apple crumble and custard.’ But Mcclure’s preferred treat is a piece of fish. ‘My wife isn’t a massive salmon fan and my kids can take it or leave it – but I love salmon. Cooked in tin foil, with lemon and a bit of salt and pepper – there’s no better way.’