Cooke Aquaculture CEO Glenn Cooke, Southwest NB MP Karen Ludwig, and Glenn's father Gifford Cooke, who helped establish the company.
Cooke Aquaculture’s salmon breeding program will soon be expanding with support from the federal government.
On behalf of Federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, as well as Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Navdeep Bains, Southwest New Brunswick MP Karen Ludwig announced $5.6 million for the expansion at the Oak Bay Hatchery as well as the company’s Johnson Lake hatchery.
CEO Glenn Cooke says this investment will create up to six new jobs, but its just the starting point to their $500 million dollar investment in Atlantic Canada.
“This is where all of our genetics start, to produce our eggs, to produce our smolts, to produce our market fish, to produce the plants the fish we harvest and process. Obviously, the further down the road you get, that’s where the job generation just magnifies, ten, fifteen, twenty times.”
The funding will advance their existing salmon breeding program, where it will develop and implement advanced genomics technology, building on their salmon breeding expertise.
Cooke says his family purchased the Oak Bay Hatchery thirty years ago, only a few years after establishing their first salmon farm in Kelly Cove.
The Cooke Aquaculture Oak Bay Hatchery on Oak Haven Road, outside St. Stephen, NB.
“We invested in a hatchery to ensure we’d have a consistent and independent supply of eggs and smolt. As the company expanded across the region, so has our need to grow this supply.”
Cooke says the facility has played a very important part in their operations and their ability to grow healthy seafood in a safe and sustainable manner.
MP Karen Ludwig says one of the elements that many people don’t see is the involvement of science.
“That science creates innovation, which creates growth, which creates jobs, and those are jobs that are all different levels of occupation.”
She also points to what she thinks is important to many Canadians: the tractability of food.
“For a sustainable industry, such as aquaculture, we know within a couple of decades fifty percent of the world will be fed through an aquaculture-type food source. So this is part of getting that science right, and also having the confidence that this is high-quality food.”
In a media release, Minister Navdeep Bains said his government is committed to a coordinated strategy on innovation that delivers results for all Canadians.
“A key aspect of that strategy is to advance research and technology that will help grow and develop the aquaculture sector in an environmentally responsible way. Today’s investment in Cooke Aquaculture will create jobs, deepen our expertise, and benefit Atlantic Canada for many years to come.”
