Swiss Blue Salmon seals deal with VAQ for Alpine farm

Swiss Blue Salmon, the company planning to establish a land-based salmon farm in the Alps, has chosen the Norwegian aquaculture technical company VAQ to build the facility.

The location is the attractive Alpine canton of Glarus in the east of Switzerland.

When completed the farm should be able to provide 3,400 tonnes or 8% of the salmon that is imported into the country.

Apart from a small proportion of freshwater lake fish, landlocked Switzerland imports almost all of its seafood, But the country has the advantage of good quality water, which makes it ideal for developing a RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) farm sector.

VAQ, previously known as Billund Aquaculture Norway has been working informally with Swiss Blue since last year, and the two companies have  now contractually agreed a deal for the construction of the recirculation system.

Sune Møller, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Swiss Blue Salmon said that over the past few months a clear vision and strategy had been set out.

VAQ had revealed a positive attitude towards the ideas of the Swiss and developed “good chemistry” with their own team, he added.

Marius Hægh, who, as chief operating office manages the business at VAQ, also welcomed the co-operation.

Sune Møller, chief technical officer of SBS said his company plans to be a sustainable breeder by adopting “state of the art” technologies that include artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud solutions, digitization and automation. This is to be at the forefront of developments in the seafood industry.

The company had spent some time reviewing its strategy and VAQ came top of the list, Møller added.

The Swiss Blue Salmon team (from left): Phil Huber (CFO), Rudolf Ryf (CEO), and Sune Møller (CTO).