About ASC
Learn more about the ASC standard and why it’s considered the world-leading certification scheme for responsibly farmed seafood.
In the years immediately thereafter, we focused on bringing all five farms up to the same high standards as our other marine farms: from infrastructure, equipment and health and safety, to staffing, training and development.
That done, we began identifying other suitable locations and, over a number of years, applied for four new consents increasing our present-day Orkney estate to nine-strong.
Come 2022, we reached another key milestone with one of those new farms, Lober Rock, becoming amongst the very first in the company to achieve ASC certification.
Now we are pushing forward with further certifications in Orkney, our Bring Head and Toyness farms included.
Sector-leading transparency
In addition to being independently audited against hundreds of different criteria, the certification process requires farms to maintain a high level of transparency.
In the case of salmon farms, this includes providing an overview of its:
- Integrated pest management approach
- Average sea lice levels per fish
- Wildlife interactions
- Estimated unexplained losses at end of crop
- Weighted number of medicinal treatments at end of crop.
All of which you will find below for our Bring Head and Toyness farms.
Integrated pest management approach
To monitor and control sea lice levels, Scottish Sea Farms provides an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach. This involves giving careful consideration to all available pest control techniques, then integrating the measures most likely to:
- Discourage the development of pest populations
- Minimise use of medicinal interventions in order to protect public and environmental health.
Average sea lice levels per fish
Below are details of the current lice levels at our Bring Head and Toyness farms, based on the average number of adult female Lepeophtheirus salmonis per fish:
Farm: Bring Head
Calendar week: 48
Week beginning: 27/11
Average: 2.00
Farm: Toyness
Calendar week: 48
Week beginning: 27/11
Average: 1.65
Wildlife interactions
Just as we have a responsibility to protect our own livestock, so too we have a duty of care to protect local wildlife from marine life from harm or entrapment.
Below are details of any wildlife interactions at Toyness during this current crop:
Birds: 0
Mammals: 0
Escaped fish: 0
Estimated unexplained losses
Unexplained losses refers to any variation in the estimated number of fish put into a marine farm for on-growing and the total number of fish harvested out. As such, these figures are reported at the end of the current crop.
ASC reporting - Bring Head and Toyness
You can download our current Bring Head and Toyness report in full below:
Code of conduct
Just as we care about looking after our livestock and local environment, so too we care about the health, safety and wellbeing of our team.
You can read about our commitment to being an ethical employer by downloading our Code of conduct below:
