Scottish Youth visit Loch Lomond

We recently had the pleasure of hosting a youth group at our farm in collaboration with Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust. Our team including Michael Hill (Biology), James Perlich (Marine Site Manager) and Alex Kilday (HR Advisor) shared information about different job opportunities and educated the group about various aspects of fish farming. The day was as enjoyable as it was educational.

Project background

The project, funded by the Wild Fisheries Fund through Salmon Scotland, is focused on teaching young people about sea trout angling and conservation. Previous trips have involved electrofishing and habitat restoration in a river in Garelochhead, a presentation by Andrew Richardson from Salmon Scotland and an information session on Bakkafrost Scotland delivered by Alex Kilday, our HR Advisor. One of the activities on the project is to visit a fish farm, and so we were delighted to welcome the group to our Ardyne site.

Future farmers

Our young visitors were full of intelligent questions, engaging with the team on topics like fish health, salmon monitoring, pen maintenance, and net washing processes. Nick Beevers, Biologist and Manager at Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust, was very impressed by our work: “we’ve seen the latest in salmon farming technology, and just how at scale the industry is, how local the industry is to where they live, the people that work on the site and the opportunities that will arise through working with a salmon farming business”.

John Gibb, Co-ordinator of the Salmon Scotland Wild Fisheries Fund, highlighted the importance of this visit: “one of the objectives of the fund is to showcase the ability for young people to enter this thriving industry…people can stay in these rural communities and work in a really thriving industry, and more importantly have a really good and well-paid career path”.

Michael Hill was equally impressed by the young group’s enthusiasm and interest in the scope of different careers paths that you can have in fish farming. Everyone left with a full insight of exactly what fish farming entails. Visits like these are an integral part of our work at Bakkafrost Scotland – educating young people about our industry and inspiring the aquaculture workers and farmers of tomorrow.

If you want to read more about our past site visits, click here