Hatchery International

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Hatchery certification earns four stars for Canadian company

March 25, 2015  By Ron Hill


Canada’s Northern Harvest Sea Farms Group is the first salmon company to achieve four-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) status, denoting the company’s salmon processing plants, farm sites, hatcheries and feed mills are all BAP certified. According to a recent press release from the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) the fourth star was achieved when the company’s new hatchery, Northern Harvest Smolt Limited in Stephenville, Newfoundland, earned BAP certification.

         It’s the first salmon hatchery to earn BAP certification since new BAP hatchery standards for finfish, crustaceans and mollusks were completed in September. (Previously, BAP hatchery standards existed only for shrimp.)

Hatchery manager, Sean MacLeod, told HI that the new facility was built with BAP certification in mind after the company won stars at non-hatchery operations. The certification requirements and process taught the company what to expect in a BAP certification assessment.

         “A lot of what was required we already do, but it was a question of putting it all together for the audit when they walk in,” he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of paperwork involved, especially on things like work safety and environmental issues besides just growing superior smolts for our cage sites.”

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         The staff worked together and “The audit went off without a hitch – better than we’d expected,” he said. “I’m hoping that we’ve set a good standard for others to follow – I think we did.”


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