NZ King Salmon processing endeavours land at Cloudy Bay
One of the Blue Endeavour pilot pens in its ‘staging site’ at Waihinau Bay, Pelorus Sound. The two pens were launched and towed to the bay in April 2025 - they will be towed to the Blue Endeavour site in the open ocean and securely moored in October 2025. Photo: Supplied.
The Board of New Zealand King Salmon Investments Limited (NZKS) has announced the purchase of a commercial site, for $8.14 million, at the Cloudy Bay Business Park in Blenheim.
NZKS Chief Executive Carl Carrington says the purchase is an exciting step in plans to achieve growth for NZKS, and New Zealand aquaculture, as it scales up salmon farming and production when the new Blue Endeavour open ocean farm is operational.
A thorough process was undertaken over more than two years to assess and undertake due diligence for potential new factory sites – in Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough. The Cloudy Bay site was assessed as being the most viable.
Notably – the location brings processing closer to its farms and fish in the Marlborough Sounds, and to State Highway 1 and its access to international airports from where NZ King Salmon’s products are distributed around the world.
Carl emphasises that NZ King Salmon is a ‘top of the South’ success story – with benefits extended across the region.
“We are a proud Te Tauihu company. This purchase and eventual start of factory operations from Blenheim will strengthen our connection to Marlborough while we continue a range of important functions in Nelson”.
An anticipated 70-100 new roles will be created as the facility comes online and as volumes of salmon harvested from the Blue Endeavour farm increase, while having primary processing operations based in Blenheim will take a lot of future trucks off the road.
“We truck fish from Marlborough over the Whangamoa’s to Nelson to be processed, and then back over the hill to be distributed. Having our primary processing operations in Blenheim takes a lot of truck movements off the road and better future-proofs our operations to be more resilient to extreme weather events, earthquakes and other things that affect road transport.”
“Once we are up and running in Blenheim, we will continue to balance operations across all sites – from our hatchery in Tasman, freshwater operations in Canterbury, our processing and key corporate functions in Nelson and our scaled-up processing in Blenheim.”
With the Blue Endeavour pilot project well underway, New Zealand King Salmon is just a few months from starting pilot-scale operations at its Blue Endeavour site.
When fully operational, Blue Endeavour will have the capacity to produce approximately 10,000 metric tonnes of King Salmon, with an anticipated annual revenue of NZ$350 million per annum.
The farm will be located 7km off Cape Lambert outside the Marlborough Sounds. It will comprise two blocks of ten circular pens each; the total farm will be less than 12 surface hectares in size.
The progress of the pilot farm to date represents important milestones for the ‘Future Farming’ programme – a five-year partnership with the New Zealand Government to pilot the technologies that will provide the ‘blueprint’ for substantive and sustainable salmon farming growth in NZ, especially within new open ocean environments.
Carl emphasises that any new factory operations on the site, and potential job changes, are at least three years away and there are no immediate or near-term impacts on the company’s Nelson-based factory operations and staffing.
“Nelson is the base for our research and development, corporate functions and will continue to host some factory processing operations and contribute to the national Blue Economy, in collaboration with Moananui and science partners such as the Cawthron Institute.
“While we need to develop a new processing site that is fit for our future, our Nelson infrastructure will continue to be important to NZ King Salmon, and to Nelson”.