Government of Canada and Province of New Brunswick support improved productivity in aquaculture processing

With the longest coastline in the world, Canada's coastal communities rely on the fish and seafood industry as an integral contributor to local and regional economies. This is why the Government of Canada and the Province of New Brunswick today announced funding support to True North Salmon Limited Partnership and Cooke Aquaculture Inc. through the Atlantic Fisheries Fund (AFF).

The AFF funding — a repayable contribution of over $6.7 million towards total project costs of over $15.6 million — will be used for the purchase of high-tech equipment for True North Salmon's processing plant in St. George, NB. The new equipment will improve value added processing and enable individual product portioning.

True North is part of the Cooke Aquaculture group of companies. The equipment addition is part of a significant plant expansion that will double the size of the processing plant, allowing True North Salmon to better respond to market demands and labour shortages, while at the same time improving the overall productivity of the company.

This funding aims to enable Cooke Aquaculture to consolidate its local salmon processing capacity, with a product mix that is more flexible and better adapted to consumer needs.

The contribution is from the $400 million Atlantic Fisheries Fund (AFF), funded by the federal and provincial governments. The AFF focuses on increasing opportunities and market value for sustainably sourced, high-quality fish and seafood products from Atlantic Canada.

Introduced in 2017, the Atlantic Fisheries Fund will continue to invest in projects over its seven-year life. The commercial fisheries and aquaculture industry, Indigenous groups, universities and academia, and industry associations and organizations, including research institutions, are invited to apply.