New Zealand King Salmon buys Blenheim site for new factory

New Zealand King Salmon has purchased a commercial site at the Cloudy Bay Business Park in Blenheim for $8.14 million.

The company stated the purchase is a key step in its plans to scale up production ahead of its new Blue Endeavour open ocean farm becoming operational.

The company emphasised that any new factory operations on the Blenheim site are at least three years away and that there are no immediate or near-term impacts on its existing Nelson-based factory operations and staffing.

It remarked that Nelson will continue to be the base for the company’s research and development and corporate functions, as well as hosting some factory processing operations.

Carl Carrington, the company's Chief Executive, said a key reason for choosing the Blenheim site was its proximity to the company's farms in the Marlborough Sounds and to key transport links.

He noted that having primary processing operations in Blenheim will take a lot of truck movements off the road, as fish are currently transported from Marlborough to Nelson for processing and then back again for distribution.

The Blue Endeavour farm, which will be New Zealand’s first open ocean aquaculture farm, is located seven kilometres off Cape Lambert.

When fully operational, it will have the capacity to produce approximately 10,000 tonnes of king salmon, with an anticipated annual revenue of NZ$350 million.