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Cooke Aquaculture Inc. is a family owned and managed Holding Corporation for a group of vertically integrated salmon farming companies based in Blacks Harbour, NB. The company’s attention to sound management, environmental sustainability, R&D and Process Improvement, has earned Cooke Aquaculture several prestigious awards and designations including the Seafood Trust Certified Eco Label – the only aquaculture company in North America to achieve this certification. Cooke has been repeatedly named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies and is among Atlantic Progress Magazine’s Top 101 companies. CEO Glenn Cooke was named Atlantic Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007 and was inducted to the New Brunswick Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame in 2009. Cooke Aquaculture Inc. has grown from a single family farm of 5,000 fish in 1985 to a fully integrated independent family company with operations in each of the Atlantic Canadian provinces and the State of Maine. With annual sales of approximately $300 million, operations now include: a land-based broodstock facility, 10 salmon hatcheries, 1 cod nursery, more than 100 marine cage sites, 4 processing plants and one leased facility in Newfoundland, a sales and marketing division, a manufacturing, sales and service division, a transportation division and a feed division. Cooke also owns Salmones Cupquelan S.A., a salmon farming company in southern Chile. Cooke provides year round, full time jobs for more than 1,500 people in rural communities in all four Atlantic Canadian provinces and the State or Maine. A high percentage of these jobs are in rural coastal areas providing opportunities for young people to find employment in their home communities. The Company produces a wide spectrum of fresh seafood products from whole fish to fillets, portions, pre-cooked meals and smoked salmon. Kelly Cove Salmon is composed of the saltwater and freshwater divisions. The company initiated the province’s first land-based broodstock program at Oak Bay, near St. Stephen, NB, which provides eggs for all of the Cooke Aquaculture Inc. operations. This state-of-the-art facility is home to broodstock that have never been in seawater. Because they have lived in a controlled environment, the company is able to minimize the risk of disease transmission to the stock. After hatch, the fish are grown to the smolt stage in one of 10 land-based hatcheries. By utilizing the latest in hatchery technologies the company is able to control the growth rate of fish to the smolt stage and make smolt available to the sea water operations three or four times a year. This practice provides a great deal of flexibility and increased efficiencies to a business that was until recently constrained by a single window of opportunity each year for smolt introduction to seawater.
On the marine farming side, Cooke Aquaculture Inc. was the first company to introduce high tech automated feeding systems that control feeding to minimize environmental impact and maximize feed conversion ratios. The company has carefully selected high energy, offshore sites and continues to experiment with design and materials to ensure the security of its farms. Cooke has also adopted sound fish health management plans that includes development of a three-bay management system for the Bay of Fundy to keep different year classes of fish together and allows the company to leave farm sites fallow on a rotational basis. 
True North Salmon Company Ltd. (TNS) is the processing and marketing arm of the Cooke Aquaculture Inc. group. TNS buys fresh harvested aquaculture salmon, trout or cod from the marine cage sites and processes them in its primary processing facility in Blacks Harbour, NB or in Harbour Breton, NL. Presently, approximately 60% of the company’s production is sold as head-on-gutted in the fresh market, primarily in the northeastern United States. The remaining 40% is shipped to value added facilities in St. George NB and Machiasport, Maine. Most of this product is processed by TNS into steaks, fillets, or portions and sold to distributors for food service and institutions, while the remainder is shipped to Atlantic Fish Specialties Ltd. (AFS) in Charlottetown, PEI for further value-added processing. Sales and marketing for TNS is led by a team at Head Office in Blacks Harbour, NB with a number of satellite offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, New Jersey, Miami, Quebec, and Toronto. In keeping with its philosophy that integration and control of the product from egg to the marketplace is essential to remaining competitive in the global market, Cooke Aquaculture Inc. went beyond the freshwater, saltwater and processing divisions and incorporated Shoreland Transportation Ltd., a transportation company, GMG Fish Services Ltd., another subsidiary that provides a broad range of services and supplies to the Cooke Aquaculture Inc. group of companies as well as other companies in the industry. These include net manufacturing, construction and repair, cage construction and repair, construction of all components of a marine cage site, retail store providing clothing and other supplies for employees and vaccination services to hatcheries. Charlotte Feeds and Northeast Nutrition Inc. produce 60% of the company’s feed needs.  Community Relations and the Environment Cooke Aquaculture Inc. has taken the lead in both environmental and fish health management initiatives and has established an excellent record of compliance. In addition, the company has been a key participant in a number of research projects designed to bring much-needed knowledge and expertise in areas of environmental interaction and fish health. The company has made significant R&D investments in cod farming, Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture, a DNA Traceability Program and it recently achieved certification to the Seafood Trust CQS Label and the Seafood Trust Eco-label. The company's CEO, Glenn Cooke served for several years as President of the New Brunswick Salmon Growers Association (NBSGA) and continues to provide leadership in advocacy work with both levels of government for essential programs for the industry. Company employees are encouraged to become active participants in the churches, sports teams and volunteer groups of their communities and the company has a significant sponsorship program whereby it regularly donates funds and products to community groups and other charitable organizations. Cooke Aquaculture Inc. achieved several awards from the business community:
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