Hands-on farming
Mowi acquired Wester Ross Fisheries in 2022. Robert Outram asks: has the move changed the company’s unique approach?
Wester Ross Fisheries is a different kind of salmon farmer. Visiting the company’s fish farm at Ardmair, near Ullapool on Scotland’s west coast, the first impression is that the pens, an array of steel cages, are distinct in scale and shape from the large round pens seen at most farms these days.
Wester Ross’s hand-reared salmon commands a premium with high-end distributors, restaurants and smokehouses. So, when it emerged that the company had been acquired by Mowi, the world’s biggest salmon farmer, the inevitable question was: what will this mean for Wester Ross’s unique approach to salmon farming?
Connie Pattillo and Ash Wiltshire, Assistant Manager, Ardessie
The sale of the company was confirmed in a Companies House document in June 2022, bringing to an end speculation over what would happen when Managing Director Gilpin Bradley finally retired.
Wester Ross Fisheries was founded in 1977 by Gilpin’s father Robin Bradley, with his business partner Alan Mann, and it was the oldest independently operated salmon farm in Scotland. In the marketplace it is known as Wester Ross Salmon (WRS).
After the sale, Gilpin Bradley joined Mowi Scotland as Business Development Director, Farming Scotland. He retired in September 2023 and, in May this year, was rewarded with the Outstanding Contribution award at the Aquaculture Awards, held in Aviemore.
Connie Pattillo has been Head of Farming Operations at Wester Ross since February 2024. She says: “The Wester Ross brand is one that people trust and believe in.”
Ardmair sign
Pattillo was previously Area Manager (Western Isles) with Mowi Scotland. Born in Australia to British parents, she studied marine biology at the University of Stirling, doing her thesis on lumpfish welfare.
She stayed on and did an internship in the salmon industry, and then worked at the Mowi wrasse hatchery at Machrihanish for six months, before joining the cleaner fish team for Mowi North, covering 12 farms including Loch Hourn and Skye.
Her career at Mowi progressed, becoming Health Manager for the North region, then a Farm Manager and then Area Manager for Uist in the Outer Hebrides, before her role expanded to cover the whole of the Western Isles area.
She argues that, since becoming part of the Mowi family, the fundamentals of what makes Wester Ross special have not changed.
Employee holding Wester Ross salmon
The feed the company still uses is its own formulation, known as Kronos, which is now produced at Mowi Scotland’s feed mill at Kyleakin. Among other features, it uses Panaferd as a natural, not synthetic, source of astaxanthin.
The feed is also high in marine ingredients, but this includes a high proportion of trimmings from whitefish processed for human consumption. Marine ingredients make up 20-25% of the Wester Ross feed and of this, at least half is made up of trimmings.
Wester Ross continues to operate with smaller pens. The cages at Ardmair, for example, are 14m x 10m which means that operations like net cleaning and morts removal can be carried out manually.
Wester Ross brand – photo: Hunter Gatherer cooking
Hand feeding is more than a gimmick, Pattillo stresses: “It means that you have eyes on the fish.”
This hands-on approach has long been a part of the Wester Ross story. It was recently challenged, however, by anti-salmon farming activist Don Staniford, who argued that the presence of feeding equipment undermined that claim.
As Connie Pattillo explains, however, where there are automated feeding systems they are there to ensure the fish can be fed to welfare standards, particularly when weather is poor or other farming activities require additional focus. Day-to-day, the traditional hand-feeding approach is still very much standard procedure.
The Wester Ross approach to medicine also continues. The use of medicines is minimised, as it always has been, with an emphasis instead on vaccination, mitigation, biosecurity and freshwater treatment, using wellboats. One of the advantages of having Mowi as a parent is that Wester Ross has easier access to the wellboat schedule.
Wild caught wrasse
As well as freshwater treatment, sea lice are managed through the use of cleaner fish, both lumpfish and wrasse. When Fish Farmer visited Ardmair, we saw a delivery of wild caught wrasse, all caught locally. They were a mix of species, including some ballan – the most favoured as cleaner fish – and goldsinny wrasse.
The wrasse are caught under Marine Scotland’s strict guidelines, which among other things mean that any that are too small or too large cannot be kept.
The cleaner fish were creel-caught for Wester Ross by the Alchemy, a small fishing vessel previously belonging to Wester Ross. The skipper is Matthew Zeitz, formerly of the Wester Ross team.
Pattillo says ensuring safe oxygen levels are maintained is one of the most significant health challenges, especially in Loch Broom. To help with this, the cages have recently been replaced with slightly larger pens which are better located and not so close together, allowing water to flow more freely.
Little Loch Broom
She says: “We have aeration onsite [provided by GroAqua] and an oxygenation unit is on hand, which thankfully we haven’t needed so far. There are oxygen meter readers in every farm and these are connected to the shore by Mowi’s own communications system.”
The system means dissolved oxygen levels can be checked by the team via mobile phone at any time.
Although they have not been a major problem so far, Pattillo and her team are also well aware of the potential threat posed by micro-jellyfish, which have been a problem along the west coast of Scotland.
Ardessie pens
The Farms Manager at Wester Ross is Scott Forder, who took up the role in early July, having worked for nearly 10 years at Mowi.
He says: “It’s so much more hands-on compared to the previous location I was at. There everything was automated, right down to feeding fish, washing nets.
“Here, everything is done manually. Last week I was watching someone count fish manually while transferring them from one pen to another, scoring off every 100 fish. So it’s totally different.”
His previous experience with organic salmon farming means he is used to the medicine-free approach.
As he puts it: “At the end of the day, the fish are what come first. If you don’t have the fish, you don’t have anything at all.”
Repairing net
The small scale of operations means that most tasks can be carried out by the farm teams without requiring assistance. Net cleaning, for example, is handled by lifting the nets, cleaning them and drying them on site – cranes, or net cleaning robots, are not needed.
A big part of working at Wester Ross is the customer interaction – a lot of people visit the farms and staff each year, and this helps to build the relationship between farmers and consumers. When Fish Farmer visited Ardmair, for example, two of the founders of a high-end, independent smokehouse in the south of England were also there to see the Wester Ross approach at first hand.
Forder says: “Everyone here is really passionate about it, and that’s what I like.”
The acquisition by Mowi inevitably meant the loss of some jobs in the support areas, but there were no cuts to farm staff. In fact, production at Wester Ross is increasing, thanks to the addition of new sites at Torridon and Loch Alsh, previously operated by Mowi.
Wester Ross now has operations at seawater sites in Loch Kannaird, Loch Broom, Little Loch Broom, Loch Torridon and Loch Alsh. The aim is to guarantee all year round production, which was previously harder at a small scale.
During periods when it is harder to maintain supply, the company sells Highland Blue, a sub-brand of WRS that focuses on hand-picking salmon that meet Wester Ross’s high standards.
Broodstock
In the recent past up until now, the company has sourced its smolts from Migdale and, more recently, Mowi. It now has a broodstock programme that should, in due course, make Wester Ross self-sufficient.
The current broodstock fish are reared at Ardessie, on the shores of Little Loch Broom. This is also the site of Mowi’s new hatchery, currently under construction. The aim is to achieve self-sufficiency in ova for Mowi Scotland, which used to import eggs from Norway and now, because of government import restrictions, mainly from Ireland.
Mowi’s initial proposal for the project stated: “The production of broodstock will secure egg supply to Mowi Scotland, with the hope to also supply other companies, thus improving the situation for the salmon farming industry in Scotland as a whole.
“This will also allow Mowi to regain control of the breeding programme for Scotland’s production fish, selecting those parent fish whose offspring will be most robust to the specific challenges faced locally, and providing significant advances in survival and performance.”
Ardessie broodstock pens
The hatchery itself is still in the process of being built, but Wester Ross’s broodstock fish are based in two sets of pens in the loch. The location, with high tidal flows and winds creating a good level of dissolved oxygen, is ideal for the fish, and periodic flows of fresh water from the surrounding hillsides help to discourage sea lice.
The latest stock, which as Fish Farmer visited were about ready to have their eggs stripped, are big fish – around 25-30kg on average – with a “B” group ready for stripping next May. WRS has launched a new brand, Genesis, for selected broodstock fish once they are harvested.
As part of the Mowi group, Wester Ross will be able to use the Ardessie broodstock facility when it is completed. Currently the fish are stripped at the Mowi hatchery at Inverpolly.
Wellboat at Ardmair
Another change coming up will be processing – at present Wester Ross salmon are processed at Loch Duart’s facility, but they will soon be handled at the Mowi facility at Blar Mhor, which is currently being expanded and refurbished. Even there, however, the Wester Ross approach will be different, and its fish will go through a dedicated “slow lane” at the Blar Mhor site.
One of the advantages of the relationship with Mowi is access to a wider international market, so for example Connie Pattillo has been to SENA (Seafood Expo North America) in Boston and will be attending trade events in Japan and Dubai in the near future.
Reparing net
None the less, local ties are just as important. Many of the Wester Ross staff live in or near Ullapool, and the company is able to provide housing for some – an important issue on the west coast.
The company has a strong working relationship with Lochbroom Transport as its main transport provider, and one of the company’s key customers is the Ullapool Smokehouse.
Moving lines
In 2022 Mowi took on an established brand with its own way of doing things. So far, the indications are that the Wester Ross philosophy is alive and well.
See Fish Farmer’s interview with Connie Pattillo online here
