The Ormsary Estate is a beautiful, if unlikely, location for a company involved in cutting-edge scientific research that could have a global impact on aquaculture. It is also the base from which the firm hopes to make inroads into Norway and Chile – the largest players in the industry.
Neil Manchester is director of Landcatch Natural Selection, which, he explains, is not a normal fish-farming company: "We like to say that we sell one thing and that is science, but we sell it in three packages: genetic services; eggs; and salmon smolts, juvenile fish."
He explains the genetic services work, undertaken at the firm's base in Alloa, is all about improving the product through breeding, which is done at Ormsary.
Neil Manchester says the more progress that is made, the less controversial fish farming should become. Fish welfare and consumer safety are the watchwords. "We are looking at disease resistance, so that will result in fewer therapeutics [chemicals] being used in the industry and that should satisfy environmental concerns. Sea lice is a major project we are involved with. If we can eliminate the sea lice issue within Scotland, then you take away one of the major arguments against aquaculture raised by the wild fish lobby."
In the mid-1990s, the Lithgows decided to focus on fish breeding. As a result, Landcatch became heavily involved in exporting eggs to Chile in the early years of the 21st century.
But the Chilean salmon industry had suffered major losses to infectious salmon anaemia in 2007, and one of the measures taken to recover the situation was to close the door to imported salmon eggs in 2008. So the Lithgow family decided that aquaculture wasn't for them, and look for a buyer.
Enter Dutch-owned multi-national livestock breeding company Hendrix Genetics. Hendrix has operations and joint ventures in 24 countries and more than 2500 employees. So being part of that is significant for Landcatch, not least the access it gives to research and development facilities.
It took over in June 2011, with Landcatch a loss-making concern. "We have undergone a restructuring of the company and so 2012 is a difficult trading year. But our anticipated turnover for 2013 is just over £6m with a target return on capital in excess of 15%. We already have markets to deliver these figures, and we are looking for more.
"Our parent company Hendrix is used to being number one or number two in the world in every field they operate in. So that's an indication where they see aquaculture going. The only way we can make substantial inroads into the global market is to make an entry into Norway."
Read more: Cutting-edge firm making waves in salmon industry | Herald Scotland
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