For the third consecutive year, the salmon farming company does not use antibiotics in its operations

Salmon producer Bakkafrost Scotland reduced the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in sea lice dip treatments to just 0.03 grams per tonne last year, compared to 0.39 grams API in 2022, according to data from the 2023 Sustainability Report of the Global Salmon Initiative, GSI.

The amount of API administered as a feed treatment was 0.43 grams per tonne, 0.06 grams per tonne less than in 2022. As in that last year, Bakkafrost Scotland did not use hydrogen peroxide, another way to kill lice, not at all.

Their non-medicinal methods for controlling lice are cleaner fish, freshwater treatments, functional foods against sea lice, heat treatments, resistant eggs, and mechanical treatments.

Sea lice counts were low throughout 2023, with the number of adult female lice per fish peaking at 0.33 in September.

The limit for sea lice in Scotland is two adult females for reporting and six adult females for intervention.

For the third year in a row, Bakkafrost Scotland did not use antibiotics and no fish escapes were recorded.

The 12-month rolling mortality figure was 20.62%, lower than that of 2022 (23.12%) and 2021 (21.71%) but significantly higher than that of 2020 (12.07%).

Bakkafrost Scotland, which sources its feed from the Havsbrún subsidiary of parent company Bakkafrost Group, had a fishmeal dependency ratio of 0.88 (2022: 1.43) and a fish oil dependency ratio of 0. .51 (0.85).