“After careful consideration, we have taken the difficult decision to close our Tooele, Utah production facility effective July 1, 2024,” said Trevor Stanley, managing director, Skretting North America, in a statement.

The company has taken decisive actions to successfully navigate the current market conditions in Western North America which has seen a flat USA market and 40% reduction in the British Columbia salmon aquaculture industry since 2020.

“While this decision was not easy, it emphasizes our focus on optimizing the efficacy and efficiency of our operations to best serve our valuable customers. This decision focuses on optimizing our operational footprint and production capacity utilization across North America, reallocating resources to operate as efficiently as possible while maintaining sufficient capacity to serve our customers with the best available technology for high-quality feeds,” Stanley said.

“We understand the impact this has on our team members and the local community. Taking care of our team members is our top priority and we encourage them to apply for other open roles within the company. Every effort will be made to relocate eligible staff to different Skretting/Nutreco sites within North America. We understand this decision has a high impact on our staff in Tooele and are working to assist impacted employees to make this transition as smooth as possible,” the statement said.

Skretting remains open to investing in future production capacity within North America and will not allow feed production capacity to become a factor that limits growth in the aquaculture industry.