The New Zealand King Salmon Co. Ltd (NZKS) has entered into a significant funding partnership with the New Zealand Government under the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) fund.
The programme is titled ‘Future Farming: A Blueprint to Accelerate Salmon Farming in Aotearoa’.
Across its five-year duration, the ‘Future Farming’ programme will pilot the technologies that will provide the ‘blueprint’ for substantive and sustainable salmon farming growth in NZ, especially within new open ocean environments. The total programme has an expected value of $29 million, with an investment by the Government of up to $11.7m. This will be one of the highest-value investments made by SFF Futures since the fund was established in 2018.
NZKS CEO Carl Carrington says, “Having the world’s first King salmon open ocean aquaculture site at Blue Endeavour is a big responsibility – while we are confident it will be successful, there will be some significant lessons learned along the way. This funding partnership will enable us to share these learnings and build industry and investor confidence”.
“With the NZ salmon sector poised to grow, the learnings from Blue Endeavour, and the associated technologies, should accelerate the pace of development of the sector and support this NZ Inc level blue economy opportunity. While this is a significant partnership for our company, we also realise that to achieve our aspirations, we must prioritise collaboration – with industry, government, iwi, suppliers, customers, communities and beyond. The rewards for New Zealand of getting this right are significant,” says Mr Carrington.
Images: Blue Endeavour concept pilot farm and pen design, courtesy of ScaleAQ – examples of some of the new technologies to be part of the pilot.
The programme encompasses three critical workstreams:
- Blue Endeavour Pilot – in relation to open ocean aquaculture (OOA),
- Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) Pilot – in relation to freshwater hatchery technologies, and
- Novel Breeding Strategies to improve fish resilience and breeding accuracy.
The successful deployment of these technologies in a pilot but commercially relevant scale will demonstrate their utility to the wider NZ salmon farming sector. It will provide the business confidence for other companies to deploy similar technologies to unlock significant growth, while also supporting the long-term viability of the industry against climate-change-exacerbated challenges.
This programme will contribute to the Government’s plans to strategically grow the aquaculture sector and to deliver export value.
Authorised by:
Board of Directors of New Zealand King Salmon Investments Limited
Further enquiries should be directed to:
Carl Carrington, Chief Executive Officer, 021 141 2856, carl.carrington@kingsalmon.co.nz
Grant Lovell, General Manager Aquaculture, 021 246 0858, grant.lovell@kingsalmon.co.nz
Ben Rodgers, Chief Financial Officer, 027 527 5636, ben.rodgers@kingsalmon.co.nz
For interviews, photos, video and any other enquiries please contact:
Monique Hatfull, Head of Relationships and Communications, 027 621 8853, monique.hatfull@kingsalmon.co.nz
About Blue Endeavour
Blue Endeavour will be New Zealand’s first open ocean aquaculture farm. It will also be the world’s first farm of its type for the valuable King salmon (Chinook) fish species.
Open ocean salmon aquaculture is the farming of salmon in enclosed fish pens, anchored in place to the seabed, in exposed marine environments.
The farm will be located 7km off Cape Lambert outside the Marlborough Sounds. It will comprise two blocks of ten circular pens each; the total farm will be less than 12 surface hectares in size. When fully operational, Blue Endeavour will have the capacity to produce ~10,000 metric tonnes of King salmon.
Images, maps, key metrics, a timeline of the resource consent process and research reports are available online: https://www.kingsalmon.co.nz/open-ocean-blue-endeavour/
About farming the King salmon breed
King Salmon is a niche salmon breed that has put New Zealand on the global map as a premium export product that is also enjoyed by our domestic consumers.
Representing less than 1 per cent of global salmon production, the King salmon species sells for significantly more than the price of Atlantic salmon. Atlantic salmon is the predominant salmonoid species sold globally. Internationally NZKS are unable to meet demand, particularly for our premier ‘Ōra King’ products which has a significant following in the United States.
NZKS has farmed salmon for more than 35 years in the Marlborough Sounds, and with nursery, hatchery and processing land-based operations in Nelson, Tākaka and Canterbury.
The Ministry for Primary Industries recently commissioned a report on the life cycle analysis of NZ farmed King salmon. This report concludes that NZ farmed King salmon has a lower carbon footprint than most land proteins.
About the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund
SFF Futures is administered by the Ministry for Primary Industries, and is a government-industry initiative that invests in significant programmes of research and innovation to boost the economic growth and sustainability of New Zealand’s primary and food sectors. For more information visit the website Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures | NZ Government