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Rand News

Shipyard into aquaculture services hub

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The founder of Norway's Steinsvik Group has teamed with a private equity on a plan to establish an aquaculture hub in the east coast Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, reports The Telegram. Bjorn Apeland, who left aquaculture equipment supplier Steinsvik at the start of the year, has founded Marbase Marystown with Pluto Investments, a Newfoundland-based private equity company owned by Paul Antle.  The town of Marystown has a template agreement in place to buy a disused shipyard back from its owner, then lease it to Marbase, according to the article.  A leaked document on the plan said the company plans to turn the facility into a “fully-integrated aquaculture service hub".  The operation will be the first of its kind in Canada, according to the document, and will provide comprehensive services offerings to the aquaculture industry in the Atlantic region.  However, it depends on what happens with the plans of another Norwegian, Per Grieg Jr, to build a big salmon farming project off Newfoundland. Grieg Newfoundland (NL), a sister company of the Oslo stock exchange-listed Grieg Seafood, is the entity Grieg plans to use for this development.  Grieg NL is a new aquaculture company located in Marystown, Newfoundland, that is created as part of the Grieg Group of companies and OCI.  Sam Synard, mayor of Marystown, said whether the development happens largely depends on if Grieg NL’s proposal to operate a salmon hatchery in Marystown, along with farms in Placentia Bay, receives environmental approval from the provincial government.

iPhone and iPad helps Cooke Aquaculture

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ProntoForms Corporation, the global leader in smart mobile forms for enterprise, today announced how Cooke Aquaculture, the largest producer of Atlantic Salmon in North America, deployed ProntoForms to transform its operational processes with a customized iOS solution, resulting in over $2.1M in annual cost savings. The solution also helps Cooke field staff become more efficient, saving about 4,200 hours per month.  Cooke Aquaculture is using ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad in the field to streamline multiple operations and maintenance processes – daily inspections of boats, barges, fish pens, and other sea farming equipment. Data submitted from the boats is transmitted to the office in real time and securely integrated into MS SharePoint to ensure rapid and easy access of up-to-date information, including custom document formats, for management, auditors, and regulatory bodies. Field data is also integrated into the company's Aquaculture Operations system of record to track site performance, feed consumption, and inventory across multiple sites and regions.

"We’re almost 100% paperless now in our department because of ProntoForms and their iOS solution for iPhone and iPad,” says Mark Fraser, Remote Feed Supervisor at Cooke Aquaculture. “One hour of savings per day for 200 users equals 4,200 hours per month, or about $180K/month in savings. Time to train staff to use ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad has been less than an hour given how intuitive the software and hardware are to use.“  "Our no-code platform enables operations groups and enterprise IT teams to quickly deploy a mobile solution, expand to new processes, develop new workflows, and completely transform their operations," says Alvaro Pombo, CEO of ProntoForms. "Enabling field technicians to reliably integrate field data into systems of record using a powerful mobile front end is a crucial capability for large corporations. As this deployment shows, our mobile solution for iOS is robust, easy to use and manage, and delivers a significant return on investment for our enterprise customers."

About ProntoForms

ProntoForms is a leading provider of smart mobile forms for enterprise. The Company's solution is used to collect and analyze field data with smartphones and tablets – either as a standalone solution or as a mobile front-end to corporate systems of record. The Company’s 100,000+ users harness the intuitive, secure, and scalable solution to increase productivity, improve quality of service, and mitigate risks. The Company is based in Ottawa, Canada, and trades on the TSXV under the symbol PFM. ProntoForms is the registered trademark of ProntoForms Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of ProntoForms Corporation.

About Cooke Aquaculture 

The Cooke family of companies includes global aquaculture divisions under Cooke Inc. and its wholly- owned subsidiary Cooke Aquaculture Inc. -- a vertically integrated corporation based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada with salmon farming operations in Atlantic Canada, the United States, Chile and Scotland as well as seabass and seabream farming operations in Spain. Cooke is the largest seafood company in North America under Cooke Seafood USA, Inc., Icicle Seafoods, Inc., and Wanchese Fish Company, Inc. The company recently acquired Omega Protein and now employs 6,000 people world-wide. Cooke Aquaculture has earned a spot on Canada’s Best Managed Companies list and their mission is to be a global seafood leader driven by an innovative team that delivers superior products, service, and value to customers in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner.

Mayor Stands Behind Aquaculture Industry

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The Mayor of Hermitage is standing behind the local aquaculture industry in the face of mounting pressure from salmon groups concerned about the industry’s impact to the environment. Steve Crewe, who also serves as the chair person for the joint mayors of Coast-of-Bays, says aquaculture is keeping the region alive.Last week a cage failed, allowing some 2,000 to 3,000 salmon to escape, according to Cooke Aquaculture.Most people are working in the industry now and that without aquaculture, the region wouldn’t exist. Crewe says an escape could happen in other industries, and it’s time to move on and embrace aquaculture in the province. It’s the same as leaving the gate open on a cow farm. Human error will happen from time to time, and all the mayors of Coast-of-Bays are fully behind the industry.