An exemplary environmentally responsible policy
Aquaculture, which seemed to be the solution to cater for growing protein needs while avoiding excessive fishing that depletes the oceans, ultimately resulted in serious environmental disturbance.
The techniques recently taught, which consisted in targeting maximum economic profitability per cubic metre of net-cage at sea, have had dramatic environmental consequences, often causing the relocation of farms in countries that are less concerned with environmental protection.
A sustainable and environmentally conscious policy
For these reasons, we can only support the initiative of the Hebridean Smokehouse company, which is involved in promoting a more environmentally conscious policy and sustainable economic development.
Tasting is a way of measuring immediately the tangible results of this policy: the products are excellent. Such an objective proves hard to achieve but it makes the company extremely proud.
While the majority of aquaculture farms in Scotland raise hybrid salmon from Norway, Hebridean Smokehouse continues to catch adult wild salmon when they return to their birthplace in North Uist to reproduce.
Total control of the production chain
The roe collected are placed in hatcheries to later provide young fish that are placed in breeding cages for two years after reaching weight of about 100 g. All the stages of this process are undertaken by the company.
Hebridean Smokehouse does not use any chemicals, colouring agents, growth accelerators or antibiotics. Regarding the latter, it is important to recall that in November 2011, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), based in Sweden, announced that 29 new cases of resistance of bacteria to antibiotics were reported in Europe between October 2010 and March 2011! Even if formal evidence of the interconnection between human resistance to antibiotics and the use of these products on animals has yet to be verified, a precautionary approach should be taken. In this case, the policy adopted by Hebridean Smokehouse proves quite appropriate.
Moreover, all preparation techniques used are traditional, from salting through to smoking with local peat and filleting by hand. The workshops can be visited by appointment to ensure a transparent producer-consumer relationship.
The end products are highly qualitative and are exported around the world, from Japan to the USA.
