Hi °C | Lo °C A salmon business whose stock was wiped out in a freak jellyfish invasion two years ago has just begun harvesting again.
The Antrim coast-based Northern Salmon Company Ltd has been relaunched as Glenarm Organic Salmon and is in the process of drawing up expansion plans, according to managing director John Russell.
The company lost more than £1m when billions of mauve stinger jellyfish descended on salmon cages in Glenarm Bay and Red Bay in November 2007, killing the entire stock of premium salmon, and was unsuccessful in its bid to secure a rescue package from the Northern Ireland |Executive. But almost two years on, the company boasts a new name and new ownership.
Enterprise Minister Arlene |Foster visited the farm after Invest NI made funding available for building a processing unit.
“We got a number of private investors from London who gave us the money to rebuild the company,” Mr Russell said.
“We restocked the two sites and they are now back to about where we were before the jellyfish incident. We’re harvesting away now.
“We had about 12 people working for us prior to the jellyfish incident and afterwards we were down to three, but now we’re up to seven again.
“What is interesting for me is that the investors are very, very keen to look at future opportunities, if not in Northern Ireland, in the island of Ireland.”
The company has already looked at a number of existing operations in the Republic of |Ireland with a view to expansion.
Mr Russell added: “Invest NI have been incredibly supportive of us. We’ll just be keeping our fingers crossed now that no more jellyfish appear.”
