New $30 million salmon hatchery in Huon part of industry’s vision for future

THREE years after launching their vision for a new way forward in Tasmania’s rapidly expanding salmon industry, Huon Aquaculture has officially opened its new $30 million hatchery.

Huon Aquaculture's Frances and Peter Bender at their new Forest Home Hatchery in Judbury. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN.

THREE years after launching their vision for a new way forward in Tasmania’s rapidly expanding salmon industry, Huon Aquaculture today officially opened its new $30 million hatchery.

Based in Judbury, the company’s largest facility is licenced to produce up to 400 tonnes of Atlantic salmon smolt a year or approximately two million fish.

Huon Aquaculture chief executive and managing director Peter Bender said the hatchery opening was the culmination of a $200 million three-year growth strategy.

“In 2013, we had a vision for the future of fish farming and chartered a course to achieve it in just three years,” he said.

“We were there when the industry started 30 years ago and we want to be here for at least the next 30.”

Mr Bender said fish welfare and environmental performance were at the heart of the facility’s design.

More than 100 local companies worked on the project during the 10 month construction phase.

Officially launching the hatchery this morning, Premier Will Hodgman said Tasmanians could be proud of the state’s world-class salmon industry.

“[We] will continue to work with the salmon industry to support sustainable, responsible and accountable growth, and local jobs,” he said.

The hatchery opening comes amid heightened scrutiny of the industry.

A recent ABC Four Corners documentary questioned whether the use of a synthetic version of the chemical in Australia’s aquaculture industry should be marked in product labelling and questioned Tassal’s assertion it would not seek to farm salmon in Mercury Passage on Tasmania’s East Coast.

Originally published as New $30 million salmon hatchery in Huon part of industry’s vision for future