Is the market falling in farmed salmon Mr Simon Coveney ? If the salmon farming industry is to remain in Ireland now is as good a time as any to move to Inland closed Containment systems where these farms can produce a truly organic product and remain in demand in a sustainable way. Marine Harvest’s Brookside plant unable to find buyer, will close September 22, 2014 UK salmon smoker Brookside Products has announced that, despite interest from several parties early on, no buyer has been found to take the plant on, and it will now close. In a statement on Sept. 22 Doug Aitchison, director of Brookside Products and head of Marine Harvest VAP for the UK, said the news was bad for the plant, which was owned and operated by the Norwegian salmon farmer. “Unfortunately there is no good news. The 30 day consultation period has passed and whilst initially there seemed to be a reasonable level of interest in the facility, discussions with interested parties have now come to an end and no formal offers have been received,” he said. “We have explored all the options and there seems to be no viable alternatives. Sadly, this means the facility will now close.” Aitchison expressed regret at the closure, adding the company did all it could to avoid it, “unfortunately to no avail”. However, during the consultation period, discussions were held with other companies in Marine Harvest VAP’s parent group, as well as local businesses and support agencies, with a view to redeployment, he said. “We are pleased to confirm that more than one third of the 64 employees have already found alternatives. Some have transferred to jobs elsewhere in the Group and others have found work with other local employers.” “We have today had a meeting with the staff representatives and made direct contact with all the remaining employees to explain the position. We are very sorry we will have to close the factory but we have no alternative given the substantial losses in recent years. This is a sad day for us all.” Salmon processor MacKnight Smoked Salmon is also based in the town of Maryport. Shadow of Rosyth In March 2014, Marine Harvest, the Norwegian salmon giant, said it was not planning on closing Brookside, after the site was de-listed by retailer The Co-operative Group. The closure of Brookside, which was leased by Marine Harvest from a Maryport family, comes as Marine Harvest gets closer to the opening of its much-anticipated plant in Rosyth, just outside of the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. The Rosyth plant, which is set to open in October for Marine Harvest, was inherited from its acquisition of Morpol, which started in December 2012 and concluded in November 2013. Since the completion of the deal, Morpol UK has been absorbed into Marine Harvest’s European processing division, headed up by Maiko van der Meer. Van der meer said he was “very excited” when it was agreed in December that the plant would fall under the VAP division. “I see the UK and Germany as our real growth markets,” he told Undercurrent News, at the Brussels seafood show. The opening of the Rosyth plant, which has capacity to produce around 40,000 metric tons of products, was pushed back several times by Morpol. Jerry Malek, the founder of Morpol who sold his shares in the company to Marine Harvest at the end of 2012, wanted to use the plant to supply direct to UK retailers, using the Scottish salmon farms he had bought. This plan never materialized, however. On Oct. 16, 2012, John-Paul McGinley, Morpol chief operating officer (and acting CEO from February to October 2013), said the plant would be operational just before Christmas. In February, the opening of the plant was pushed back to will the first part of 2013. On May 15, Undercurrent then reported the opening was expected to open in early 2014. Rumors of acquisition It emerged early on after the announcement of a consultation period that parties were interested in taking over the facility, located in Cumbria, England. The plant’s representative, Platform PR, told Undercurrent News a sale to another seafood processor was “absolutely an option”, and revealed one had expressed an interest. That was believed to be Bleikers Smokehouse. Sources from inside Brookside, claiming to represent the majority of the employees there, told Undercurrent they had seen members of the Bleikers team visiting and touring the plant, most recently in mid-June 2014. Alex Irvine, business development director of Bleikers, declined to comment. Later in the process, former MacKnight COO Stephen Nicholson was thought to be looking to purchase Brookside after it entered consultation. Nicholson, who left MacKnight in March and is now an independent consultant according to Linkedin, was connected with the deal by an anonymous tip to Undercurrent News. Contacted by Undercurrent, Nicholson responded only to confirm he no longer has any ties with MacKnight. He said he would not comment on any speculation around Brookside at that time. Sources within the UK’s salmon processing sector were united in casting doubt on whether Nicholson could be linked with Brookside. Three different sources agreed it was unlikely he had the resources to buy the plant. undercurrentnews/2014/09/22/marine-harvests-brookside-plant-unable-to-find-buyer-will-close/
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 13:02:22 +0000
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