Loch Duart launches new welfare-led farming standard tailored to small-scale operations.
Scottish salmon producer Loch Duart has launched a proprietary welfare framework, the Loch Duart Standard, aimed at strengthening accountability and transparency across its farming operations.
The standard is designed to reflect the company’s low-density, small-scale approach to aquaculture, diverging from existing certification models that Loch Duart says are increasingly geared toward large-scale producers.
Key features of the standard include more frequent on-site audits, site-specific assessments, and independent verification by Leigh Grant Consulting and Partners in Welfare. The new protocol will apply across the company’s entire production process, from broodstock through to harvest.
Managing Director Mark Warrington said the initiative formalises Loch Duart’s long-standing emphasis on fish welfare and hands-on farming. “The Loch Duart Standard reflects how we farm — hands-on, welfare-led, and future-focused,” he said. “It’s a bespoke framework, not adapted from large-scale models.”
Warrington added that the standard would remain agile to incorporate emerging welfare and environmental practices. “It introduces a new level of transparency with regular, on-site inspections and independent audits of each site.”
Loch Duart said it granted inspectors full access to all sites, including the right to conduct unannounced visits. Leigh Grant Consulting confirmed its focus would remain on direct fish observation and staff interaction, with documentation checks serving as a secondary control.
The company, based in Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides, has consistently marketed its salmon as premium, low-impact, and welfare-led, under what it calls “The Loch Duart Way.”