Written evidence submitted by Salmon Scotland (CISFL0023)

Salmon Scotland is the trade body for the farmed salmon sector across Scotland. We represent both production companies and supply chain businesses. Scottish Sea Farms and Cooke Scotland have sea sites and processing facilities in Shetland producing around 40% of the Scottish salmon total harvested tonnage. Thus, Shetland is of major significance to Scotland and the UK given that salmon being the UK’s No 1 food export by volume.

In total, the Shetland salmon farming sector employs 390 people, with 530 staff in ancillary supply-chain jobs, while the total worth to Shetland’s economy (gross value added) is £91 million, with £173 million of salmon exports from Shetland.

Cooke Scotland is part of the Cooke family of companies, established in 2014 following acquisition of seawater and freshwater assets in Orkney, Shetland and the U.K. mainland.  In Shetland, its operation is largely based in and around the northern isles of Unst, Yell and Fetlar. Thus, the existing inter-island ferry service is a major factor in the logistics of this business.

The company has invested heavily in these economies, assisting communities and providing local jobs and skills, allowing people to stay on the islands.  With 138 employees in Shetland alone, 20% of the workforce of the isles of Unst, Yell and Fetlar is accounted for by Cooke, with the age range of staff (2025) 16 – 65, with the maximum length of service 37 years: these are skilled, permanent, long-term jobs paying more than the national average, with the company’s total pay package in the region of £5 million, while wider community benefit funds support all of Shetland.  In 2024, Cooke spent £15 million in the Shetland business community, working with 114 Shetland-registered businesses: a significant proportion of this begins with its operations in Unst, Yell and Fetlar. 

Salmon harvested in these northern Shetland Isles of Unst and Yell leaves in refrigerated trailer transport via Shetland’s internal ferry network, ultimately bound for the overnight external ferry from Lerwick to Aberdeen and onward.  Haulage operators endeavour to ensure that salmon reaches Lerwick timeously to meet the external ferry connection to Aberdeen.  Any disruption to these inter-island Shetland ferries causes considerable business problems in maintaining contracts and sales positions that have been negotiated in advance.

Shetland Islands Council operates an ageing ferry fleet, there are crew shortages and illness, and weather disruptions are part of island business life. Therefore the existing ferry system on which salmon businesses are wholly dependent can be unpredictable and unreliable. 

In recent years, these challenges have become more acute, with salmon companies supplying local, national and international markets faced with consequent knock-on and grave impacts to their daily operations: 100% dependable and efficient logistics are fundamental and key to any fresh and perishable food transport, with these initial links critical to supporting the supply chain, while continued and future confidence in economic development can be both diminished and threatened. 

These northern Shetland Isles are highly economically productive. Salmon Scotland believe that the construction of fixed links would conserve and protect business sustainability, the island’s  economic significance and present and future employment prospects. Fixed links would also make attracting new staff easier as they would commute from the Shetland mainland more easily.

Salmon Scotland believe that the UK and Scottish governments must work together to recognise the contribution which these northern Shetland isles make to the wider British economy. Therefore the provision of fixed-link infrastructure is essential and government finance should support this investment.

One of Salmon Scotland’s production company members is Bakkafrost who are headquartered in Faroe. We would encourage the Committee to recognise the investment that the Faroese government have made in connecting their islands and communities by subsea tunnel with the resulting economic and social benefits. From a salmon farming perspective, Faroe is significantly advantaged in terms on their islands logistics by this investment. We would wish to see the same in Shetland.

I would also wish to associate Salmon Scotland with the submissions made to the Scottish Affairs Committee by Seafood Shetland and Shetland Islands Council. We share the policy objective of delivering the creation of permanent, fixed transport links to Shetland’s islands.

Salmon Scotland

December 2025