WESLEY VALE, TASMANIA — BioMar, a Danish-owned fish food company, confirmed this week that its new aquafeed plant in Wesley Vale, Tasmania is on target to start full production by April.

The company, which began building the feed mill in late 2017, said initial start-up is scheduled for late February with the official opening slated for April.

When the project was first announced, Carlos Diaz, chief executive officer of BioMar, said, “I am confident that our approach of balancing local agility and global excellence will give us a solid position in Australasia. We have already established very successful cooperation with key customers, and we are looking forward to working with a broader base of customers developing the aquaculture industry in Australia and New Zealand.

“The world around us is changing and there is an increasing need for combining sustainability and efficiency. We clearly see that end-consumers are changing buying patterns toward high quality products with a responsible profile. We firmly believe that working closely together with the value chain can prepare the industry to take a lead in the global food sustainability agenda.”

The mill will have an annual production capacity of 110,000 tonnes of aquafeed.

BioMar, which specializes in high performance diets for more than 45 different fish and shrimp species in more than 80 countries, said the location of the new mill was due to Australia’s leading fish farming companies being based in Tasmania and because of the potential for growth in aquaculture there.

Tasmania is an island state of Australia located about 150 miles south of the mainland.