Salmon: Helping Shetland leap ahead

For thousands of years Shetlanders have been connected to the sea.

The geography of Scotland’s northernmost island grouping – 115 islands and more than one thousand miles of rugged coastline – means that, wherever you are, you are never more than two miles away from the water.

Understandably the sea continues to play such a crucial role in island life.

When it comes to salmon farming in Shetland, big numbers tell a tiny part of the story. Shetland farms produce more than 36,000 tonnes of salmon (or a staggering 148.2 million meals) annually, worth more than £190 million. The salmon sector now accounts for the largest proportion of Shetland’s economy, bigger than oil and gas and tourism.

But the value of salmon farming – by far the biggest portion of an aquaculture industry that includes mussel-farming – is arguably about more than figures.

The salmon sector has helped to put Shetland on the global map. In many countries, especially on the European continent, Shetland is known for its salmon and people pay a premium for salmon with a Shetland provenance.

It is a dramatically different picture to when salmon farming first began in Shetland in the late 1960s.

Back then, it was mostly local crofters dabbling with one sea pen or two, knowing that Shetland’s clean cool waters and strong, steady tides were ideal for nurturing healthy salmon.

Today, the local sector has morphed into an economic powerhouse, attracting fresh investment, and creating and retaining jobs in some of the more remote communities.

Three companies – Cooke Aquaculture Scotland, Grieg Shetland and Scottish Sea Farms, which acquired Grieg's Shetland operation in summer 2021 – operate around 40 seawater sites and between them employ more than 500 people in Shetland, counting among the largest private sector employers on the islands.

Because of this, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in Shetland who doesn’t work – or have a relative who works – in aquaculture.

The hundreds of jobs these companies support pay, on average, well above the Scottish national average, so it’s rewarding, well paid work which helps to enable people to stay local, rather than moving away from the islands in search of employment, and where pay is spent locally, helping other local shops to stay in business.

The buoyant sector has the potential to help Shetland to transition away from its dependence on oil and gas jobs, and we are already we are seeing people made redundant from the oil and gas sector being re-employed as salmon farmers.

As well as direct and indirect employment the salmon producers run voluntary community benefit schemes, pumping tens of thousands of pounds back into the local communities in which they operate, which supports local organisations and events and maintaining community halls which are the mainstay of local life in Shetland.

Beyond that, there is a ripple effect into other parts of the economy with jobs across the supply chain, and even the hospitality sector.

But the Shetland salmon sector also supports many other local industries, from hauliers to engineers and electricians.

With roughly 80 tonnes of salmon leaving Shetland every working day, the supply chain kicks into gear – from the lorries provided by local companies like RS Henderson, the council-run inter-island ferries and the NorthLink ferry to Aberdeen, which relies heavily on the aquaculture sector transporting feed, fish, people and machinery between Shetland and the Scottish mainland.

All this means more ferries can run, and that people in remote communities can have high-skilled and well-paid jobs that keep them in the island communities they grew up in.

It’s not just the Shetland supply chain that benefits. Businesses on the Scottish mainland from Annan to Aberdeen provide support services to the Shetland aquaculture sector, generating jobs and prosperity on the Scottish mainland, too.

But it’s Shetland that benefits the most from aquaculture, and with new investment in new farms, workboats and equipment planned, these benefits are set to continue.

Luckily for Shetland, demand for salmon has proven resilient during tough times. While other seafood has seen a marked decline in sales, the versatility of salmon and its ability to be easily cooked in homes has kept it on British dinner-tables, with more than £1 billion worth of salmon sold in the UK in the year until June 2020. Demand for fresh salmon among European consumers has also remained strong and is growing ever more so as restaurants, hotels and bars spring back to life.

Endorsement from premium supermarkets point to Shetland salmon’s sustainability credentials, with each of the islands’ growers also adhering to RSPCA animal welfare standards, including stocking density rules that stipulate a ration of no more than 1.5 per cent fish to 98.5 per cent water. Some Shetland salmon is also reared to Label Rouge requirements, a French government-endorsed food standard for quality and taste and is a mainstay of the premium foodservice sector in Europe.

Salmon farming is big business, from which Shetland reaps big rewards.

And it is here to stay. In a little over half a century, salmon farming has flourished to become a bedrock of the Shetland economy, helping local communities do likewise.

Find out more about fisheries and aquaculture in our Invest section.

cookeaquaculturescotland.com, griegseafood.com, scottishseafarms.com