Seafood giant Mowi has drawn up plans to close a fish processing plant in Scotland.
The facility in Dingwall in northern Scotland employs “about 15 people“. Consultation with staff has begun. Mowi wants to move production from Dingwall to the company’s other processing plants in Scotland.
“All staff will be offered similar or other employment with Mowi throughout the company’s value chain, which includes fish processing plants, salmon hatcheries, ocean farms, and a feed mill,” Mowi said in a statement.
The Norway-based bought the plant from Wester Ross Fisheries in June last year.
According to Mowi’s annual report, Scotland is the third-largest market for the company in terms of harvest volumes.
In February, the fish producer announced plans to cut 435 jobs across the business this year but claimed no redundancies would be made.
The planned cuts were to reduce the enterprise’s workforce by 12% and were part of a company-wide cost-saving plan announced in 2018.
“The FTE [full-time employees] reduction will happen through natural turnover through retirement, reduced overtime and reduced contracted labour,” a spokesperson told Just Food at the time.
The plan also involves streamlining the business by introducing more automation and renegotiating contracts with suppliers.
In 2022, Mowi’s revenue grew 17.5% to reach €4.94bn ($5.21bn). The company’s operational EBIT stood at €1.01bn, up 92% year on year. Its profit was €785.3m, which represented a 60% increase on 2021.
The world’s largest salmon farmer recorded all-time high revenue of €1.37bn in the second quarter of 2023, compared with €1.23bn in the corresponding quarter of 2022.
Operational EBIT however fell year-on-year to €299.5m from €320m, mainly due to lower prices and higher realised cost in the farming segment.
The Norwegian major maintained its full-year harvest guidance of a record-high 484,000 tonnes, equal to 4.4% growth year-on-year.
Alongside the publication of the second-quarter results, Mowi said it intended to pursue its “legal interests” over the government’s aquaculture tax, which will be implemented in the new year.
