It announced the opening of the new plant through a virtual press conference this morning.
BioMar announced plans to establish production in Australia back in 2017 and after a two-year build, the first trucks of fish-feed have started to roll out of the plant.
The production facility will produce up to 110,000 tons per annum of aqua feed, targeted at the Australian and Oceania aquaculture industry.
The plant will produce feed for producers of salmon, trout and yellow tail king fish, among other species. Trials of its feed products are already underway in both Australia and New Zealand, said the company.
Despite COVID-19, the factory is operating, with employees adopting social distancing measures, said BioMar.
The company told us before that its expectation is that by being locally present in Tasmania with commercial staff, technical expertise and production facilities it will have a competitive advantage in a booming aquaculture market.
"We are bringing BioMar’s global best practices and nutritional know-how into our region helping to support sustainable innovation in aquaculture,” said BioMar Australia MD, David Whyte.
Commercial production of high-end feeds in China
In parallel with the developments in Australia, the Danish feed company reported yesterday [May 6] that BioMar-Tongwei JV has begun commercial production of aqua feeds in its new factory based in Wuxi, China.
The quality standards at the new facility make it possible to transfer production of high-end aqua feeds for China that were previously produced in Denmark, said BioMar.
There were some delays in the construction of the factory, but the commissioning phase was uncomplicated, said Alan Xiaoqing Qian, general manager of BioMar-Tongwei.
The green field factory in Wuxi was announced as a strategic and important growth initiative back in 2016, to bring BioMar production knowledge for high-end species into the Chinese market.
Together with the existing factory in the south of China, the company said the new factory is going to service a wide range of species for that market including sturgeon, rainbow trout, Californian sea bass and large yellow croaker.