Marine Farms is an international aquaculture company with a diversified and integrated seafood portfolio. The Company's current product portfolio can be divided into three main categories:

• Salmon and salmon eggs, parr and smolt and salmon produced in the UK trough the wholly owned subsidiary Lakeland are primarily sold to the UK and French markets through wholly owned Sea Products of Scotland 
  
• Seabass and seabream (and juveniles) produced in Spain and sold to the domestic market through the wholly owned subsidiary Culmarex
  
• New species represented by cobia, initially producing and selling juveniles to other farmers. The ongrowing of cobia for sale commenced in 2006 in Belize and Vietnam.   

 

Salmon (Lakeland)

Marine Farms has been involved in the salmon farming industry since its incorporation. During the last decade, the Company has owned and operated salmon farming sites in Scotland, Norway and Chile. Following the restructuring of the Company in 2003/04, the operations in Chile and Norway were sold. Marine Farms' salmon operations are now concentrated in Scotland and on Shetland through its wholly owned subsidiary Lakeland.

Lakeland has been operating within the salmon farming industry since 1987, and specialises in vertically integrated production of Atlantic salmon, all the way from the egg through fry, parr, smolt and fully grown salmon to the sale of gutted and filleted salmon. In 2008, Lakeland harvested and sold approximateyl 11,400 tonnes (GWT) of salmon. Lakeland's capacity is approximately 12,000 tonnes (GWT) per year.

Lakeland's hatchery business is considered to be the largest independent supplier of salmon ova and smolt to the UK market. The Company has a production capacity of 60 mill ova and 9.0 mill smolt. Demand for salmon smolt and ova in the UK is increasing. Approximately 30% of the smolt is used internally and the remaining 70% is sold to external customers.

Lakeland's fully integrated operations allows for tracing the salmon from table to egg, and even further back through Lakeland's unique breeding programme. Lakeland emphasizes just in time delivery, in order to meet the customers demand in the best possible way.

Sea Products of Scotland, a fully owned subsidiary of Lakeland, is a marketing company specialising in the supply and sales of farm raised species, primarily from Scotland. They exclusively represent in the marketplace the high quality salmon grown by Lakeland in their specifically selected sea sites.

Lakeland is a niche supplier of salmon marketed as a high quality product. The main markets are UK and France and the main customers are processors, smokers, multiples and wholesalers.

Seabass/seabream (Culmarex)

Culmarex in Spain carry out Marine Farms' farming of seabass and seabream. Culmarex was founded in 1986 and commenced the production of various marine species such as yellowtail and oysters. In 1990 the Company decided to focus its activities on seabass and seabream. Currently, Culmarex is a vertically integrated supplier of seabass and seabream, and conducts all parts of the production, from broodfish trough the pre-ongrowing of juveniles up until the last stage of the production process before the fish is ready for the market.

In 2008, Culmarex harvested and sold approximately 4,800 tonnes of seabass and seabream and has currently a capacity for producing approximately 12,000 tonnes per year. In 2008, Culmarex also produced approximately 14 million juveniles from selected brood stocks at ABSA, a wholly owned hatchery with an estimated annual production capacity of approximately 18 million juveniles.

The majority of the juveniles produced at ABSA are delivered to companies owned by Culmarex. ABSA is unique in the Mediterranean as it delivers the majority of its juveniles by well boat directly to ours cages. Further, the registration system developed at ABSA allows full traceability from egg to harvest, which has proved to be an important factor for high quality supermarket customers.

Culmarex main customers are represented by wholesalers (60%), retailers (30%) and export (10%). The wholesalers are mostly high quality wholesalers, some located at the major markets. Among the supermarkets Culmarex supply we find Carrefour, El Cortes Ingles and Consum.

New Marine species 

Cobia (Florida/Belize/Vietnam)

Cobia is the only species in the family of fish known as Rachycentridae, and it is also known as ling, lemon fish and crab-eater among other common names. It is a pelagic fish which can reach weights up to 60 kg and occurs in all tropical and temperate seas (20-30C°), except for the eastern Pacific. 

Cobia is a white meat fish and it grows from 1 gram to 5-6 kg in less than one year (three times the growth rate og Atlantic salmon). Its fillets are popular in sushi and other dishes. Cobia is a relatively unknown species in the fish farming industry. However, Cobia has all the traits we want for a farmed fish such as good eating qualities, large fillets, high on Omega-3, do well in cages, fast growth, year round egg supplies and an efficient production. These characteristics make cobia an appealing aquaculture species.

Although commercial production of cobia has only just begun in the west, it already has a successful history in Asia, most notably in Taiwan where cobia is stocked in around 80% of ocean cages. Hatching of cobia has taken place in USA and Taiwan since 1992, while farming has been in progress since 2001.

Marine Farms has operated a cobia hatchery in Florida since 2002 and is in the process of building up fully integrated operations for cobia in Belize in Central America (for fresh export to the American market) and in Vietnam (for fresh export to the Asian market and frozen export to other markets). First priority is to get Belize up and running. The experience gained in Belize will then be used to develop Vietnam.

Cobia represents an exciting opportunity for Marine Farms. First sales of market sized cobia into the US markets took place in the summer of 2007, and the response so far har been positive. Marine Farms has currently a production capacity of approximately 8,000 tonnes gwt per year. The development of the processes for cobia hatching is largely based on the experiences from the farming of seabass, seabream and cod in Europe.