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Undercurrent News reported live from the North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) 2021, which was held online this June 8-10 as a result of its coronavirus-related postponement from March.
Norwegian land-based farmer Andfjord Salmon is in the process of acquiring land as it looks to fast-track construction at its site on the island of Andoya before the completion of its initial facility, CEO Martin Rasmussen told listeners.
At Andfjord’s site near Kvalnes, construction of its phase one pool, with a capacity for 1,260 metric tons of fish, has reportedly been finished. All that remains are “post-construction” activities, Rasmussen said.
“We can fill the pool with water within the next one to two weeks, should we want to, but we also need to install the outer joints of the inlet pipeline. And we have also discovered some damage to the installed inlet pipeline which will take approximately eight to 10 weeks to fix.”
Excavation and blasting work is taking place on Kvalnes phase two, adjacent to the phase one site, which will aim to bring total capacity to 12,600t once complete.
Then, the acquisition of land for phase three, which would grow production a further 50% to 19,000t, is in the pipeline.
“Phase three is needed now because we have a window of opportunity where a local construction company can make use of all the excess masses from the excavation and the blasting work,” Rasmussen said.
He added that by fast-tracking the development of other phases, Andfjord aims to give itself more time for biological testing of new sites, as well as reducing stress to the fish by minimizing the time exposed to vibrations from adjacent construction.
This year in the Barents Sea, cod quotas have seen a marked 20% increase in the total allowable catch for cod — but it looks as if quotas could well be set for a reversal next year, according to Sturlaugur Haraldsson, managing director of Norebo Europe.
This year’s quota is set at 885,000t, but Haraldsson told listeners “we are already hearing rumblings that the scientists are going to now recommend a reduction in quota next year.”
He added that he “wouldn’t be surprised to see a 10-15% reduction” in the Barents Sea cod quota — which represents 70% of the North Atlantic cod catch — next year.
So far, the extra quota does not appear to have manifested in a landings increase, with Russia and Norway only seeing 5% and 2% increases in catch volumes respectively as of the end of April.
As previously reported by Undercurrent News, an unusually high bycatch of saithe meant the Russian fleet had to leave Norwegian waters early, in mid-April, this year.
Rasmus Sorensen, director of US fishing and processing giant American Seafoods gave a fairly damning verdict on the outlook for Alaskan pollock supply over the rest of 2021, and its ability to meet rapidly escalating demand.
“I think we can make a couple of assumptions that 2021 will be dominated by supply chain challenges,” said Sorensen. “Everything will be short and late; I don’t see anything change on that front any time soon.”
Over the past couple of decades, there has been a shift in stock-carrying burden from buyers to sellers, Sorensen said, as ample supply has made it somewhat unnecessary for sellers to maintain big inventories.
“The need for that buffer inventory has been reduced substantially over time, which means that a lot of companies nowadays are so dependent upon just in time delivery,” Sorensen told listeners. “And in many cases only keep a few weeks’ worth of inventory.”
“So when there are interruptions on a global scale, like we’ve seen now, it really impacts industry quite quickly and quite massive.”
Whitefish blocks and surimi have been particularly affected, according to Sorensen, with an over-demand and under-supply that has now been building for some time.
China saw many of its processing factories shut or work at reduced capacity for an extended period of time. Meanwhile, the extra customs checks and delays have seen a sharp reduction in imports of both headed and gutted and whole round pollock — down some 90% so far this year, according to data from analyst Kontali.
Elsewhere, Russia has begun putting more emphasis on value-added products rather than exporting to China, a trend that Sorensen expects to continue.
“Alaska had its challenges, as I’ve just touched on, especially during this current season, we had some issues with our shore facilities in Alaska, where they were on pause, and actually only started off about a month into the ceased production — didn’t get caught up.”
Although volumes did not change greatly, the delay did affect the pollock product mix coming from the US, which saw a heavy drop in production of PBO blocks as a result — down 33.8% to 32,553 metric tons as of May 15.
Russia’s whitefish industry can expect to deliver a greater flexibility of products in the coming years as its ongoing investment quota scheme starts to bear fruit, according to Sturlaugur Haraldsson, managing director of Norebo’s European business.
At present, there are 56 new fishing vessels under construction alongside 35 new crab vessels, each being built by companies pursuing quotas becoming available under the state program.
Including vessels being built unrelated to the investment quotas, there are 107 newbuilds currently under construction in Russia. These vessels will be gradually coming online in the next two or three years.
Add to this the 24 new processing factories being commissioned at the same time, and there are “big changes coming now in the next couple of years”, Haraldsson said.
“This would properly have an impact on the product mix that will be coming from Russia in the coming years, there’ll be much more flexibility in terms of what it can produce,” he told listeners. “We have now the capability of producing more fillets, [and] we already started to produce more surimi.”
With foodservice outlets across Europe set to reopen this summer, one of the big questions hovering around seafood processors is whether they can expect the increased retail business captured during COVID to stick around.
Stuart Price, head of the seafood category at Nomad Foods, is confident that “a high proportion” of this extra frozen seafood demand will remain after the pandemic.
“There are indicators that these new and return customers will be retained within the frozen category,” he told listeners. Firstly, when looking at two high demand markets in the UK and Germany, freezer sales saw increases of 50% in both countries over the past year.
“And secondly, consumers are developing the habit of visiting the freezer more often for mealtimes versus pre-COVID levels, which could be due to spending more time at home and having more confidence in frozen food for lunch and mealtime occasions.”
When looking at which frozen fish saw the biggest increases in demand between April last year and this, pangasius comes out a huge winner, recording volume growth of 57% year-on-year.
Frozen salmon and other farmed species also saw double-digit volume growth in the past 12 months, and Price suggested that farmers have been better placed to capture any excess demand over season-dependent fishermen.
In the competition between eight companies at the NASF “seafood innovation day”, Hawaii’s Kuehnle AgroSystems won the voted-for award with its natural astaxanthin for the aquafeeds market.
Kuehnle has developed a patented low-cost fermentation technology to produce natural astaxanthin, a “massively scalable” answer to the synthesized coloring that is largely relied upon to give farmed seafood its flavor at present.
“The competition…was very tight this year,” said Solveig Holm, project manager at NCE Seafood Innovation. “But the audience and the expert jury concluded on a very qualified winner of the award.”
“We are very happy to receive this recognition of our work,” said Heidi Kuehnle, CEO at Kuehnle AgroSystems. “We are looking forward to taking part in the NCE Seafood Innovation network during the next years.”
For more on the company and its ambitious plans, read Undercurrent News’ story.
Outlining his company’s sales strategy for its first commercial harvest of farmed cod, Christian Riber, CEO of Norcod, said their fish would be a “completely different product” to wild-caught cod from Norway’s fisheries.
Firstly, the nature of farming means that Norcod can choose when to harvest, allowing them to target the more volume-restricted offseason, a luxury that fishermen don’t have.
In turn, this means that Norcod will aim to sell a sizeable proportion of its fish on a long-term contract model.
“Farmed cod appeals to being sold on contract, so we intend to sell 50% of our cod on contract, the rest on spot, when there’s very little high-end fresh fish in the market,” he told listeners.
Unlike wild-caught cod, farmed cod has a 6% smaller head, with an 8% higher headed and gutted yield, and a 9% higher fillet yield. “The texture of the farmed cod is firmer and has a great clean and slightly sweet taste — we see this as being especially appealing to families and younger consumers.”
Distributor Sirena Group will be responsible for selling Norcod’s product both overseas and in Norway. According to Riber, the firm will sell whole fish to all main whitefish markets, while focusing sales of loins and portions on western Europe and the US.
Norcod’s first commercial harvest is scheduled to take place in the third quarter of 2021.
Stolt Sea Farm’s new land-based facility producing sole is already providing a “fantastic” return on investment, said the firm’s president Jordi Trias Fita.
Since production started at the €10 million Cervo, Spain-based facility in January, Stolt – the aquaculture division of Norway’s Stolt-Nielsen group – has been supplying local markets with fresh sole on a weekly basis.
Based on current performance, the plant is expected to generate €2.5m in earnings before interest, tax and amortization this year. Stolt has also stocked a new turbot facility in Portugal with juveniles, which it expects to harvest in August.
“We are out-performing any other sole farm we’ve had in the past,” said Fita.
The good start builds off Stolt’s two decades of sole and turbot farming experience using recirculating aquaculture systems, he said.
It also supports plans for more modular farms – each with 400t of annual production capacity – earmarked for three other sites in Spain and Portugal “in the coming years”.
“The growth plan is guaranteed both because we own the land but also because we have the solution and it’s working very well,” he said.
This will set it on its way to 6,900t of sole and 2,700t of turbot production annually by 2024, while the goal by 2035 is for 23,300t of total annual output.
Global group Austevoll Seafood will finish an expansion at its omega-3 factory in Norway later this year, said CEO Arne Mogster.
Via pelagics processing subsidiary Pelagia, Austevoll owns Epax — a firm producing omega-3 products for the health supplements sector — that it bought in 2018.
Epax has just one plant — compared to Pelagia, which runs 13 factories processing for human consumption around the North Atlantic, and 10 fishmeal and oil plants — but later this year it will finish work on a capacity expansion.
He did not mention what that capacity would be, nor is it mentioned in the firm’s reports.
Mogster noted (in the bottom slide, below) that 2021’s North Atlantic quotas would see greater supply of pelagics for human consumption, and less for fishmeal and oil, given year-on-year shifts in species availability.
Atlantic Sapphire CFO Karl Oystein Oyehaug offered a bullish outlook for the second phase of construction at the firm’s Florida, US-based ‘bluehouse’ salmon farm.
According to Oyehaug, the land-based farmer has learnt lessons from the difficulties it faced during the first phase of construction at the site, which give it more confidence as it grows to a stable target production of 25,000 metric tons head-on gutted salmon by 2023.
Firstly, Oyehaug notes, when Atlantic Sapphire commenced phase one building, it did so with a very small workforce of just over 10 people. Now, they have a team of 105 employees at the US site.
“Secondly, we were relying on a RAS system supplier with limited experience at large-scale RAS system production in phase one,” Oyehaug continued, referring to the firm’s former manufacturer Billund Aquaculture.
Since the release of the company’s disappointing Q1 results, Atlantic Sapphire has appointed US water treatment company Hazen & Sawyer.
“Third, what we did in phase one was to prioritize a construction manager with local experience rather than being more specialized in complex water systems,” Oyehaug said. “In phase two, we’re doing things differently and smarter with Wharton-Smith coming in as the construction contractor for the water systems.”
Wharton-Smith has worked with Hazen several times before, he noted, which gives them “comfort” going forward.
The first third of phase two construction is expected to be completed by mid-2022, before harvest volumes are to be ramped up in Q1 2023. Full steady-state phase two production is then expected in Q3 of that same year.
The full capex budget for the second phase is $14/kg, with the construction budget accounting for recent salmon price inflation.
With its existing debt package offering a $52 million buffer, Oyehaug reiterated that Atlantic Sapphire is “ready to have all managerial focus on execution of phase two buildout”.
Chilean salmon farmer Blumar has confirmed it will construct a recirculating aquaculture system hatchery in south Chile’s Magallanes region, CEO Gerardo Balbontin revealed.
Earlier this year, Blumar said it was evaluating the “final investment decision” on the plan, for which it has already obtained environmental permits.
Currently, salmon stocked in Blumar’s Magallanes farms have to travel 1,500 kilometers from region 10 — causing increased costs, and killing some fish, said Balbontin.
Now, the firm will build a RAS facility to supply 100% of the smolt it needs in the region, in Punta Arenas. Construction will begin in 2022, he said.
He also noted Blumar’s processing plant in Magallanes — a $60 million joint project with Multiexport Foods — now employed 400 staff and was getting up to speed.
It began operations in 2020, and has a capacity of 50,000 metric tons.
“We are not yet up to 100% utilization, you can say we are on the learning curve,” he said. “Every day we are improving.”
Chile’s Multiexport Foods has considered how it might fit into the land-based salmon farming trend, and decided on its own version: “hybrid farming”, said CEO Christian Swett.
The plan will be familiar to Norwegian salmon farmers — raising smolt to 400-500 grams in size in fully recirculating systems, before transferring them to the sea for a shorter grow-out cycle.
Its new facility, named Multisea, is a joint venture with Sealand Aquaculture; a supplier of smolt to both Blumar and Multiexport which suffered a major strategic setback after a court turned down its application to build a post-smolt facility earlier this year.
The first eggs will enter Multisea’s system in September this year, said Swett.
The ultimate goal is for the facility to produce 6 million smolt, 4m-5m of which will weigh in at 400-500g each, he said. Multisea is around 100 kilometers west of Puerto Montt.
A focus on shifting volume sales to value-added products (VAP) in 2020 meant Chile’s Salmones Camanchaca was able to avoid the worst of the year’s price volatility, according to CEO Ricardo Garcia Holtz.
As can be seen below, Holtz presented data showing the prices Camanchaca achieved throughout 2020 remained significantly higher than the spot price (according to Urner Barry).
Moving into 2021, spot prices have soared, but Holtz is confident that its VAP price will only lag this “for a few months”, he said.
Foodservice demand in the US is now back at pre-COVID-19 levels, he said, and retail demand has not dropped either, leaving Chilean salmon in a strong position. Unfortunately, supply for 2021 has declined, in part down to the harmful algal bloom which struck early in the year.
The impacts of this on salmon production will, for Camanchaca, have recovered by 2022, he said.
Nutreco-backed Nordic Aqua Partners has filled 100,000 square meters of land in China for its land-based salmon farm and is now preparing the construction of the facility.
The firm’s facility is being built near Shanghai and has a planned capacity of 4,000 metric tons in phase one, with scope to increase production to 50,000t in the region.
“The building includes administration and a hatchery and we are preparing the first inlay of eggs by the end of this year, meaning the first harvest two years later, so the end of 2023,” said chairman Ragnar Joensen.
Nordic Aqua Group is fully equity-financed to produce up to 8,000t of salmon annually at its current site, which could be expanded to 20,000t of production.
Nordic Aqua secured €20 million ($24m) in funding from Nutreco in January 2020 and the firm is also backed by Akva Group. Its board includes CEO of Akva Group, Knut Nesse.
Last November, it raised €55.1m following a private placement of shares on Euronext Growth Oslo.
Joensen said the location of the farm will cut costs and carbon emissions compared with salmon imported from Norway and Chile, currently China’s two biggest suppliers.
Ice Fish Farm — owner of Icelandic salmon farming company Fiskeldi Austfjarda — has its eyes on a potential 50,800 metric tons worth of salmon farming licenses, revealed CEO Gudmundur Gislason.
At present, the firm — ultimately owned by Norway’s Masoval group — owns licenses worth 20,800t: 18,500t of fertile salmon, and 2,300t of sterile fish.
It hopes to see applications for a further 7,000t of sterile fish in Stodvarfjordu, and 6,500t of fertile fish and 3,500t of sterile salmon in Seydisfjordur, granted during the course of 2021, he said.
This would take it to 37,800t.
Then, the company has approval from the National Planning Agency of Iceland to move on with work on a final environmental report for farming in Mjolfjordur.
“It is likely that biomass will be auctioned off by the minister as soon as the Marine Institute has issued its findings,” said Gislason.
“We believe we are in a strong position for this auction, thanks to our work on the environmental report and our position on the east coast of Iceland.”
Below you can see the firm’s full breakdown of what it hopes to achieve.
Not content with simply supplying the local Japanese market, the land-based salmon farm being constructed by Norwegian farmer Proximar Seafood near Tokyo will also sell some of its product to targeted Asian markets once production is up and running, CEO Joachim Nielsen told listeners.
“I want to emphasize that we intend to export some of our volumes to the high growth region in Asia, targeting niche markets,” Nielsen said.
“Japan has a reputation as a high-quality seafood supplier in Asia, and we want to take advantage of this for our own production.”
One of the key financial and environmental incentives behind the development of land-based aquaculture is the ability to produce high-value foreign species close to target markets.
Proximar’s farm, currently under construction (see below) is just a two-hour drive from 38 million people in one of the most densely populated cities on the planet.
However, the current consumption of Atlantic salmon per capita in Japan remains fairly low, at an average of 0.5 kg per year. This equates to a total annual consumption of 65,000 metric tons per year, of which 40,000t is fresh and predominantly supplied by Norway.
To this end, Proximar sees potential not just in its proximity to Tokyo but also to the near bottomless demand of the ever-growing Far East market.
“We also believe in demand growth in the Japanese market going forward,” said Nielsen. “There’s a large consumption of salmonids in Japan today of around 300,000t per year, and we expect to see some substitution from other salmon species.”
When completed — targeted for mid-2023 — the first phase of Proximar’s new farm will have a production capacity for 5,300 metric tons of head-on gutted salmon. Beyond that, Proximar also plans an additional 21,000t through a second stage expansion.
Norway Royal Salmon (NRS) has two key areas it wants to improve — production costs, and harvest volumes — and both revolve around biological performance, noted CEO Charles Hostlund.
Key to improving biological performance is the firm’s new smolt facility, located close to its farming sites along the Norwegian coast, he said.
It has a production capacity of 2,400 metric tons, and it has licenses to produce up to 10 million smolt, weighing up to 400 grams each, yearly.
Production at the facility has begun, and it should mean larger salmon can move to its sea pens by the spring of 2022, said Hostlund.
Meanwhile, Arctic Offshore — NRS’ project for farming salmon in more exposed locations — took delivery of the first of its two new offshore cages during Q2, he revealed.
It will be stocked with fish — which are already at sea, preparing for the transfer — in Q3 of this year.
Land-based salmon company Salmon Evolution has already taken lots of positives from its joint venture with Dongwon Enterprise that it wants to replicate elsewhere.
The firm, which plans 70,000 metric tons of output from flow-through farms by 2030, said local partners like Dongwon — the two firms agreed a joint venture to build a 20,000t facility in South Korea in March — can “help us accelerate international expansion”.
“In this stage of the company’s development, we are convinced that the best way to expand internationally is together with a strong local player like Dongwon in South Korea,” said Hakon Andre Berg, CEO of Salmon Evolution.
Local firms bring knowledge of regulatory frameworks and trustworthiness in the eyes of local stakeholders, resulting in shortened project times and execution rates, he said.
Salmon Evolution’s hybrid flow-through system imposes some limitations on the geographies it can build in – facilities must be built on the coastline. It can nevertheless use seawater from different depths, opening up geographies unsuitable for traditional net-pen salmon farming.
The firm has secured NOK 1.3 billion ($156.2 million) in equity financing in the past two years, and its projects are fully funded. Photos presented by Berg from its main site in Norway show several huge tanks near completion, with each 30 meters high, capable of holding 5,000 cubic meters of water.
According to Berg, phase one of the facility will be able to produce 7,900t of salmon each year from 12 tanks by 2024, with expansion lifting output to 31,500t by 2030.
Proximar Seafood, the Grieg family-backed land-based Atlantic salmon farmer located near Tokyo, Japan, has begun the installation of pipes at its planned recirculating aquaculture system this week.
The farmer only formally began ground works at its intended site near Mount Fuji on May 6, according to CEO Joachim Nielsen, following a ground-breaking ceremony on April 26.
Proximar has a 28 month construction plan, he said, with the nursery and hatchery building expected to be completed in mid-summer 2022.
The first batch of eggs are then planned to be introduced to the facility in Q3 next year, with the full growout building scheduled for completion in mid-2023, in time to take on the first batch from the nursery at a planned size of 100 grams.
“This means that we expect the first harvest by mid-2024,” Nielsen told attendees. The first phase of construction is expected to have a harvest capacity of 5,300 metric tons once completed.
The firm also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a potential future sales and marketing agreement with Japanese seafood giant Marubeni Corporation in early May.
Grieg Seafood harvested the last of its salmon from its operations on the Scottish island of Skye at the beginning of Q2 2021, said CEO Andreas Kvame.
It announced it would discontinue its operations on the Isle of Skye in the fall of 2020, “evaluating alternative set-ups outside the company”.
Grieg is also still working on divesting its Shetland operations, allowing it to focus on Norway and growth in Canada. The divestment process should be wrapped up before the end of 2021, said Kvame.
While 2020 and the start of 2021 have been tough for Grieg — as it has for many companies, given the coronavirus pandemic — it sees the second half of 2021 onwards as a return to positive performance.
Leroy Seafood Group will go on strengthening its downstream distribution in Spain and Italy, after opening new units in 2021, said CEO Henning Beltestad.
In May the salmon and whitefish firm completed its new center in Madrid. This becomes its Spanish headquarters, while it also has distribution hubs in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Las Palmas, and in Lisbon, Portugal.
The new hub will offer ready-meals, sushi, salmon fillets, frozen and fresh products to the Iberian markets, which it will go on working to capitalize on, he said.
Also in May, Leroy opened its new factory just south of Venice, Italy, which will focus on fresh packed consumer products.
“So in Italy we are just starting the journey we have had in Spain, which has been around 10 years of growing the market,” said Beltestad. “We’ll start developing the market in Italy for fresh packed consumer products, which is a bit underdeveloped considering how important the market is for us.”
Beltestad also revealed Seafood Danmark, in which Leroy upped its stake from 33% to 78% in Q2 this year, saw good profits in 2020:
Mowi CEO Ivan Vindheim said his company, the largest salmon farmer by volume globally, does not intend to expand its feed operations to sell outside the company anytime soon, noting that the competition in the external market is “currently too high to justify a broadening of our strategy”.
The farmer originally began its own feed operations back in 2013, to break up the “oligopoly” of feedmillers dominating the aquafeed scene in Europe.
At this point in time, Mowi now has two mills devoted to supplying the company’s European farms, one in Norway and another on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
“We have un-utilized capacity at our feedmill in Scotland, and in Norway we can add on an additional production line if needed, with limited capital expenditure,” Vindheim told listeners.
He added that Mowi’s strategy from here will be to grow its feed operations at the two sites alongside its farming capacity in Europe.
“But we are optimistic and will continue to cherry-pick from case to case,” the Mowi CEO added. “In other words, the focus in Mowi feed going forward is to streamline our feed operations, working on cost and continue to produce high-quality feed, specially designed for Mowi breed.”
One year ago, Yulia Leontyeva — CEO of Russia’s Defa Group’s CEO — noted that while her country had spent two years or so building up its coldwater shrimp fishing capabilities, 2020 could see fewer vessels participate in the fishery year-on-year.
She was proved correct, according to figures she presented at NASF this year.
Her count puts the number of vessels fishing Russian shrimp in 2020 at 15, down from 22 in 2019. She estimates that figure will almost halve again in 2021, to just eight.
The slide below shows the extent of the drop in Russian catches; from a precipitous rise between 2017 and 2019, landings fell 24% in 2020, and are estimated to fall a further 43% in 2021, despite a strong lift in total allowable catches.
Leontyeva said the reason for the decline has largely been because the shrimp “disappeared”.
“Some trawlers tried to find them, but they failed. A lot of others didn’t bother trying, as groundfish species quotas were good for them and preferable.”
Looking ahead at the longer-term prospects for whitefish, Ragnar Nystoyl from market analyst Kontali said that one of the key features of global whitefish in the coming decade is expected to be a proliferation of high-value farmed marine species.
He pointed to The Kingfish Company, Stolt Sea Farm, Clean Seas Seafood, Norcod, Nordic Halibut and Barramundi Asia as examples of rapidly growing farming enterprises devoted to selling high-value species on an international scale.
These species are characterized by high initial investment costs and expensive production costs relative to traditional farmed finfish production.
“And it leads to a totally different go-to market strategy with a focus on higher-value, high-end sales channels,” said Nystoyl. “It’s focused on niche characteristics, with system sustainability, health and quality as typical marketing pitches, and branding through anything but price.”
When looking at what this could mean for global whitefish supply, Kontali believes that the relatively new segment will help to drive prices and higher values for whitefish products, but that its impact on global production volumes will be limited (below).
Import data presented by Mike Berthet of Aquaesea shows the extent to which the UK — the key market globally for cooked and peeled coldwater shrimp — has halted imports.
Comparing the first three months of 2019, 2020, and 2021, you can see (below) this year’s UK imports are down by almost 50% year-on-year. In March 2020 the UK had yet to see widespread coronavirus cases.
As Undercurrent News has reported, the UK’s purchases of Greenlandic shrimp have dropped steeply in 2021 due to Brexit and uncertainties around the tariff situation.
Berthet also warned, “we don’t really know how much of what is in cold stores now is close to being out-of-date”.
He urged the industry to better promote to and communicate with consumers — especially younger generations, for whom the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy has resonated — as well as to get the chefs in a bid to restart the demand for shrimp in restaurants.
The US state of California is on track and looking likely to achieve Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for its catches of coldwater shrimp (pandalus jordani) this year, said Charles Kirschbaum of the Shrimp Producers Marketing Cooperative and Pacific Seafood.
This would be good news to the sector, bringing California in line with Oregon and Washington, which have had MSC certification since 2007, he said.
2020 saw a “real nice season for pink shrimp”, he said; see landings information in the table below. California’s were down steeply year-on-year, mainly due to the fact that its one 2019 peeling facility did not operate in 2020, said Kirschbaum.
Yet another year of increased coldwater shrimp catches in Greenland offset a dip in landings by Norway and Russia in 2020, according to data compiled by Gemba Seafood Consulting.
Overall, total landings of pandalus borealis and jordani combined were stable year-on-year; 294,000 metric tons in 2020, versus 293,000t in 2019.
Greenland’s catches of 113,507t were an all-time high, according to Gemba’s Kasper Teilmann. This was down to both good stocks and increased quotas, and the introduction of several new vessels which have served to utilize the quota well, he said.
As can be seen below, Russian catches were down in 2020, as were Norwegian landings from the Barents Sea and North Atlantic.
Iceland’s Marine Research Institute recently carried out an updated risk assessment for fertile salmon, raising the bar to 106,500 metric tons across the country’s fjords.
In addition, the total safe carrying capacity across 10 fjords open to aquaculture has been lifted to 132,000t. If Iceland was to achieve that figure, it would overtake Australia and the Faroe Islands to become the world’s fifth-largest salmon producer.
This is all tempting potential for Bjorn Hembre, CEO of SalMar-owned Arnarlax (or Icelandic Salmon, as its parent company is now known).
He noted there were still several fjords that have not been opened to aquaculture, but neither has it been ruled out. In the Westfjords, where Arnarlax operates, the firm has pending applications for an additional 14,500t of maximum allowable biomass (MAB).
Its current licenses reach 25,200t MAB, and it hopes to reach 15,000t of production in 2022; 20,000t in 2023; and 30,500t in 2024, aided by the recent acquisition of two smolt facilities.
If each of its pending applications receives positive responses from Icelandic authorities, and it makes full use of the opportunities granted by its new smolt projects, its MAB could reach 39,700t, Hembre noted.
MAB utilization in Iceland is still not as good as in Norway; Arnarlax would hope to achieve a utilization ratio of 0.8-1.0, he said.
Nordlaks’ first salmon production cycle at its giant offshore Havfarm, named Jostein Albert, didn’t go quite as well as expected, said Bjarne Johansen, project manager Havfarm Nordlaks.
In the first production cycle, mortality was higher than the firm had hoped for and what it anticipated, he said.
Havfarm, the world’s largest offshore salmon farm, was first stocked with 1.5 kilogram fish on July 25, 2020. Within the first week of September, all cages were stocked and full operations commenced.
The unit’s performance was extensively documented, including its biological, operational, and technical performance, as well as environmental impact, said Johansen.
“In hindsight, thanks to the extensive documentation carried out, it is clear to us that the Havfarm itself has not contributed negatively to this situation,” said Johansen, referring to the mortalities. The manager did not give further details about possible causes.
Nordlaks plans a second stocking of Havfarm later this year, he said.
“Putting Jostein Albert into operation has been an exciting and challenging task for all personnel involved, especially the crew,” said Johansen. “Even though we’ve tried to keep as much of the traditional operations, equipment and procedures from ordinary aquaculture, new technology and practices had to be developed to ensure efficient and robust operations.”
Norwegian aquaculture firm Nova Sea was awarded four development permits, worth 3,120 metric tons biomass, back in 2019.
Now, revealed Kare Olav Krogenes, project leader for the “Spidercage”, it is almost ready to finish design work and award a construction contract.
A closed-containment fish farm unit, Spidercage absorbs energy from the ocean around it, via waves and wind. It then uses that energy to power onboard facilities, though it carries a backup generator “for when the weather is not helping”, said Krogenes.
It can be remotely operated and has space for 14 days’ worth of salmon feed, though Norwegian regulations now stipulate staff must be onboard unless the weather is dangerous, he noted.
It also has a fixed 12-meter sea lice skirt.
Nova Sea is due to finish the detailed design phase in July, and contract it out for building work in August. The intellectual property is protected until 2029.
“This is for salmon now, of course, but there is no reason it won’t work elsewhere for other species,” he concluded.
Trine Saether Romuld, head of finance and director of strategy at SalMar Ocean, gave some brief updates as to the firm’s plans for moving aquaculture into the open ocean.
After two successful production cycles in Ocean Farm One, the company has decided to move ahead with the second generation of this design; Ocean Farm Two.
“That incorporated all the lessons from those two production cycles, but we will move to more exposed areas with waveheads of four-to-eight meters,” said Romuld.
“We are now close to the end of the pre-engineering phase,” she added.
Meanwhile, SalMar is also prepping its Smart Fish Farm (SFF) plan, which will take aquaculture even further into the open ocean. It has identified two sites around 50 nautical miles off the coast of Froya, central Norway.
“These two areas alone have a significantly larger area than the entire space the Norwegian coastal aquaculture industry currently uses,” she revealed.
SalMar has sent off its site application to authorities and has entered SFF into its design phase.
“We will be ready for an investment decision by the end of this year or the beginning of next year,” said Romuld. “We are in dialogue with both Norwegian and international shipyards, and assuming a decision is made late in 2021, we expect to be in operation from quarter two, 2024.”
Europe’s whitefish sector faces a bright future, according to Norwegian Seafood Council analyst Eivind Hastvik Brakkan.
Speaking during NASF’s whitefish session, Brakkan said that home consumption of fish in Europe had grown “substantially” during the pandemic.
He said consumption had grown 10% on average, with salmon and cod being the stand-out species. Salmon benefitted from a 5% reduction in retail prices, which led to a 25% jump in consumption.
The price of cod remained unchanged, but still saw a 12% rise in consumption during the pandemic, Brakkan added. Sixty percent of Europeans had eaten cod at home in the last 12 months. that’s up by a whopping 58% during the pandemic. This equates to 7 million more people eating cod, he added.
The average cod consumer also eats more of the fish than before COVID, he said.
In terms of looking ahead to this year, Brakkan pointed out a large increase in Norwegian and Russian cod quota. “During an epidemic this could sound like a recipe for a perfect storm.” However, the reality turned out to be better than many had feared, he said.
Suppliers have been able to redirect supplies away from the foodservice sector to retail. And while the fresh price had seen a drop, the figure is not worse than years where there had been high export volumes, Brakkan said.
Retail prices had not changed much this year, but sales of fresh cod continue to rise nonetheless.
“People have bought, prepared and eaten more seafood during the pandemic, including cod. We truly believe this will benefit the whitefish industry as the world gets back to normal. New consumers will continue eating the fish they have learned to cook and enjoy at home, and new supply chains providing more volume to retail bodes well for the future,” Brakkan concluded.
Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and work on RAS feeds will allow for innovation in fish farming again, after costs have made investing in the traditional sector tricky, said Nutreco CEO Rob Koremans.
Nutreco is involved in offshore aquaculture, closed containment units, and RAS, but has invested heavily in the latter, putting NOK 35 million into Proximar Seafood this year.
Koremans cited many of the familiar reasons for being excited about RAS; low water usage, the biological benefits of a closed system, low transport costs and footprint, and the greater scope for precision farming.
He also noted that, as an aquafeed producer, Nutreco-owned Skretting has to try and master “feeding the fish, and feeding the filter, almost, as well”.
“Traditional farming has come to a point financially where it’s becoming very unattractive and innovation will be very little in this area.”
“With RAS we have the opportunity to continue to invest and to do that in an economically viable way for Skretting,” he said.
Nutreco sees good financial returns for its investors through RAS, as well as “fantastic opportunities for feed”.
This year the whitefish market will be dominated by a supply chain mismatch, according to Frank Bodin, director, Nordic Group USA.
Bodin was discussing the outlook for US demand during NASF’s whitefish session, during which he added that US demand is expected to be strong, fuelled by government spending.
“We have a broken supply chain from COVID. This supply chain is struggling to adjust and correct very quickly, and we will therefore probably have shortages or at least a tight supply situation going forward,” he said.
As in France and Spain (see below), the German retail market for farmed salmon was given a strong boost by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, according to Sven Braasch, CEO of distributor Friedrich Wilhelm Lubbert (known as Lubbert).
The seafood category overall in Germany saw 16.5% growth in 2020, prompted — as for so many markets — by almost complete closures to the foodservice sector at times. Seafood turnover at retail rose to €4.1 billion.
This was a boost to a category that was already increasing, said Braasch — the introduction of modified atmosphere packaging goods in recent years had meant shops without fresh counters, including discounters, widely began stocking seafood.
In 2020, salmon saw its fortunes improve more than other seafood items. It enjoyed a 22% increase in volume sales year-on-year, significantly more than Alaska pollock, cod, and even tuna.
Consumption is lifting across all age groups; positive signs for the industry.
The growth in salmon sales went on in January of 2021 too, said Braasch. Sales of fresh salmon were up 43% y-o-y, frozen were up 19%, and smoked salmon 28%.
In contrast to other parts of the global whitefish sector seeing supply deficits this year, hake catches in South Africa and Namibia are holding firm, according to Konrad Geldenhuys, managing director of South Africa’s Sea Harvest Group.
Total allowable catch for cape hake in South Africa has been marginally reduced in 2021 to 140,000 metric tons, while Namibia’s TAC has remained flat at 154,000t. Catch rates in 2021 have been stable so far, Geldenhuys said.
What is more pressing for the industry is the reallocation of South African hake quotas for 12 fishing sectors, he told listeners, which was postponed from last year to the second half of 2021 due to the pandemic.
Fishing rights for cape hake as well as some pelagic species and squid are to be set for the next 10-15 years. The entire process is to be completed by Dec. 31, with the new rights taking effect from Jan. 1 next year.
Russian pollock catches for the first four months of 2021 are down considerably on the same period for 2020, according to data shown by Sturlaugur Haraldsson, managing director of Norebo Europe.
As of the end of April, the Russian fleet has caught 918,000 metric tons of pollock, down 137,000t, or 13%, year-on-year.
As a result, headed-and-gutted pollock production is also down 34%, at 355,000t — though this has also been influenced by a greater focus on fillet production.
That said, US PBO fillet production has been down 17,000t so far this year, and Russia’s gain of 11,000t to 47,000t has not managed to offset that loss.
Similarly, an increase in frozen at sea APO block production in Russia has not made up for the reduction seen in the US during the 2021 A season, Haraldsson said.
He added that based on the relatively disappointing fishing season so far this year, it was “very unlikely” that the Russian fleet would catch its 1.8 million metric tons pollock quota this year, with a lower overall catch expected in 2021.
Nikki den Boon of data management provider SGS showed which European and North American retailers require products with sustainability certification.
The table below lists nine major retailers from European and North America, and four popular sustainability certifications.
Aquaculture Stewardship Council is most common, with all nine retailers listed requiring the certification.
Besides third-party certifications, some retailers also use their own standards, such as the UK’s Marks & Spencer.
Boon said to manage documentation and certification requirements with complex supply chains, retailers are adopting more REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) data management tools.
Land-based aquaculture will succeed eventually, especially in North America and Asia, according to Dag Sletmo senior VP at DNB seafood.
The banker, speaking during a DNV aquaculture forecast panel session, added that he did not expect any one technology to dominate the sector in the years to come.
“Conditions vary a lot in aquaculture, it depends where you are in the world, a fjord, or a farm, or onshore, etc. We think it will be a mix of these technologies that will succeed, rather than one clear winner.”
Salmon farming is the main focus for DNB in this sector, and Sletmo believes that coastal farming will continue to dominate.
He said that the success of land-based would ultimately depend on cost.
“There’s very little hard data on anyone doing this on a big scale. It depends on pricing. Sometimes a niche product with niche technology can get a big price premium. Will that be sustainable over time?”
Sletmo said one technology, in particular, would be increasingly important – digitalization.
“Sometimes we say that aquaculture isn’t exactly rocket science. It’s much more difficult than that!”
“The reason is that in biology everything is related to everything. The potential for getting better knowledge and insight into the biology of the fish, the interaction with the environment using digital technology is huge,” he said.
The French and Spanish markets for salmon have been stronger than most so far in 2021, revealed Ivar Wulf, COO for value-added sales and distribution with Leroy Seafood Group.
Volume sales of Norwegian salmon to these two countries are up 18.6% for January-April, while the rest of the EU is up 10%, he said. This has been driven in part by lower prices year-on-year, but here too the strength of the market has been demonstrated; prices for France and Spain are down 7.6%, less of drop than the 8.8% seen for the EU in general.
As a result, Norwegian salmon value sales to France and Spain are up 9.5% for the period mentioned, while they are up just 0.3% for the wider EU.
Since April 2021, pricing has lifted, noted Wulf. “That will flatten the market a little bit, but we still see a very high demand side.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for permanent change in the market, Leroy believes. Wulf pointed to the increase in Spanish Google searches for salmon as evidence it has been bought and cooked at home far more over the last year.
In the future, working from home is likely to remain a part of life for many, he went on.
“That means more lunches at home, more snacking at home, less commuting and more time to cook. We expect retailers and product manufacturers to have lots of opportunities.”
After a substantial increase in salmon supply globally in the first quarter of 2021, the prospect of a tight salmon market and high prices has “seldom been more evident”, according to Ragnar Nystoyl, head of analysis at Kontali Analyse.
Nearly 90% of the forecast full-year supply growth — 5%, or nearly 140,000 metric tons (whole fish equivalent) — has come during the first four months of 2021, said Nystoyl.
He said the outcome was “not in our models”, and followed strong harvesting.
Despite this, prices have remained high, such that an expected drop in supply in the Americas in the summer and autumn, and to a lesser extent Europe, looks set to drive further price rises.
“A return of demand now coincides with a supply-contraction from Chile, that is anticipated to continue through the whole year. That more and more resembles the market dynamics seen back in 2016,” said Nystoyl.
“As ‘Out-of-Home’ sales channels gradually return during summer and autumn, demand from the HoReCa-sector will be a steady and an increasingly stronger driver for increased prices,” he said.
In the coming years, the seafood sector as reflected by the Norwegian stock exchange, Oslo Bors, will not be focused just on salmon, according to Pareto Securities.
Presenting the firm’s outlook, equity research analyst Carl Emil Johannessen said the market capitalization of the new, non-salmon firms to join Oslo Bors over the last year showed success was expected.
There are now two cod farmers listed, Norcod and Statt Torsk, with “ambitious volume targets”.
“We see that the biology of farmed cod has improved a lot since the last time it was attempted, and we can see the market expects they will be successful,” said Johannessen.
Australian yellowtail kingfish farmer Clean Seas Seafood formally listed in Norway in May 2021.
“This is a high-value species, and if the company does well on the production side, it should make good money,” he said.
Like yellowtail farming, halibut firms should benefit from good sales prices and profits if they succeed “with continuous improvement on the biology side”.
“It will be interesting to follow the new species; in the coming years there will be more and more focus on these species, not only salmon.”
DNV has launched its marine aquaculture 2050 forecast report at NASF.
CEO Remi Eriksen explained that the classification society was often asked for its views of the long-term prospects for aquaculture by investors, operators, suppliers and regulators.
“Rather than provide ad hoc answers, I asked DNV’s ocean space program to research and produce a detailed outlook,” he said.
Its model considers population growth and changes in living standards to estimate the future demand for food.
It then forecasts the role of marine aquaculture in meeting this demand through the main species and technology options involved, Eriksen said.
DNV predicts that global marine aquaculture production will more than double by 2050 and approach the level of capture fisheries.
It also expects Asia will continue to dominate the market, but Europe and Latin America will match it for finfish production.
Eriksen also said that within the finfish sector, we will see “new innovative production technologies emerging offshore and onshore for high-value species”.
Onshore production will have a 25% share of the total finfish market by mid-century, he added.
This growth in marine aquaculture will require a tripling of feed production “which can only be achieved if you find alternatives two unsustainable feed”, DNV said.
“That requires scaling-up production of entirely new ingredients in combination with Marine and agriculture-based ingredients from sources with a smaller climate footprint.”
With mounting pressure on wild catch, there are high expectations that marine aquaculture will meet growing global demand, Eriksen concluded.
Responding to an invitation to brief Northeast Atlantic Seafood Forum participants on president Joe Biden’s new administration, Jim Connelly, head of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) broke things down into three main areas.
First, Biden’s campaign pledge to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, called 30×30 — described by Connelly as “fisheries management by slogan” — has been watered down in the face of opposition.
The initial plan was to wall off 30% of the US’ exclusive economic zone, as well as push for the same on the high seas, but in the event an executive order in early May also took into account industry concerns, he said.
Connelly said the new order involved a more science-based approach, and was welcomed by the industry not least as it did not duplicate existing fisheries management legislation in the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Second, NFI is not anticipating a new aquaculture bill in the next couple of years.
Despite interest in offshore aquaculture in the US, the challenge is the current Congress makeup, which is closely balanced between Republicans and Democrats. “We’re not sure whether leadership would come up with a bill that actually generates investment,” he said.
Third, investing in new clean energy supply with needs of coastal communities will require “striking a balance”, he said. In May, Biden permitted offshore wind farms for Long Island, New York, and Cape Cod, which is expected to disrupt local fisheries, such as for clams.
Connelly said NFI is looking partners and peers overseas as the US embarks on an energy revolution, “to help us understand how other countries found that balance between wind energy generation and the interests of the seafood”.
Market intelligence tool EUMOFA has attempted to estimate what makes up the costs for recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) projects compared to traditional net-pen farming.
Using Nordic Aquafarms’ operation in Maine, US, as a case study, it proposed operating costs per kilogram are comparable across the two production methods, with cage-based farming clocking in at around €3.91/kg of head-on, gutted Atlantic salmon.
The big difference between RAS and cage-based farming, it said, is the proportion of costs made up by labor, energy usage, and depreciation:
In terms of depreciation, Eirik Junge Hess — of both EUMOFA and Kontali — said some of the data was confidential, but it essentially represented the decline in value of the assets post-investment.
EUMOFA’s full report into RAS can be found here.
Myun-Woo Lee, president and CEO of Korean seafood giant Dongwon Industries said it would be looking for more collaboration with Norwegian businesses as it endeavors to continue growing its aquaculture presence.
The firm formed a joint venture with Norwegian land-based farmer Salmon Evolution in March this year to construct a recirculating aquaculture system for Atlantic salmon in South Korea.
Dongwon is aiming for a production of 20,000 metric tons at the site by 2030, but from Lee’s talk it is clear the company does not intend to stop there.
“Salmon is not the end of the road for us, through today’s event we wish to expand into other Norwegian archipelagic species as well,” said Lee. “We will move into the aquaculture business in a more eco-friendly, social-friendly and customer-friendly way.”
Lee pointed to the results of a 2015 study that showed seafood consumption per capita in South Korea is greater than the US, China, or even Japan. Given the not inconsiderable carbon footprint inherent in flying seafood from Norway to East Asia, he believes there is a potential for Norwegian firms to use their expertise to help build aquaculture businesses in Korea itself.
“I hope my presentation serves as a way for Dongwon and Korean companies to connect with the Norwegian companies for our mutual benefit,” Lee concluded. “I hope these efforts could lay a solid bridge between us.”
Assurance and risk management firm DNV has unveiled its marine aquaculture forecast to 2050 at NASF.
The report projects the demand and supply for farmed fish and other seafood considering population growth, changes in living standards and dietary shifts; it stresses the need to tackle key sustainability barriers and that future demand for seafood can only be met sustainably with a wave of technological innovation in marine aquaculture, the company has said ahead of the launch, which has been timed to coincide with NASF.
Its previous report – on aquaculture through to 2030 – forecast the industry’s shift to “going digital” and moving offshore, predicting innovative formulated feeds, greater automation, and integrated multitrophic solutions.
It also predicted land-based aquaculture would become a game-changer.
Norway wishes to remain a “leading ocean nation” and encourage international efforts to protect the oceans, said the Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg.
Addressing NASF participants, Solberg said Norway has devoted “unprecedented resources” to research technology and innovation, and invested heavily in future-oriented maritime industry, as part of its “ambitious goals” to develop the blue economy.
“We have highlighted the importance of education, good management and predictable frameworks,” she said.
She added the country is encouraging open data sharing and “transparent accessibility”.
Norway is spearheading international cooperation and maritime diplomacy, with research programs like Ocean Panel involving 14 different countries, she noted. The country has also supported a further global research plan recently submitted to the UN general assembly.
“Concerted international effort is required to halt the decline [of the oceans] and unleash the economic potential,” said Solberg. “The goal is clear, to build a sustainable blue economy,” she added.
Describing aquaculture as the future for global food production, Samuel Thevasagayam, deputy director of agriculture development at the Gates Foundation, noted that both Asia and particularly Africa represent “untapped market potential that is lying dormant”.
“If we really look at what is being realized, if you really improve your husbandry… and if you then improve the health and then feed and genetics, you could really get closer to the potential productivity,” said Thevasagayam.
His data also suggested that genetics has the biggest potential for pushing such improvements.
The Gates Foundation has been pushing for more collaboration between major industry players, particularly those acting in a support capacity for fish farmers, to collaborate with small-scale producers in Africa and Southern Asia. In both regions, aquaculture demand is growing at a much faster rate than any other part of the world.
“We believe industry is the one that has the tools and technologies that could help small-scale producers realise this potential,” Thevasagayam continued.
“If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open,” he concluded, quoting Indian author CK Prahalad.
REV Ocean, the research firm funded by Aker’s billionaire owner Kjell Inge Rokke, is nearing completion of its 183-meter oceanic research vessel, according to REV CEO Nina Jensen.
Once completed, the vessel will be the largest devoted purely to research in the world. Jensen said it would be available to scientists from any nation working on “solution-focused” research projects.
The new vessel, which is being built by Norwegian shipbuilder Vard, will be able stay at sea for 120 consecutive days and is being built to function in harsher environments. It will also be outfitted with a submarine, a number of ROVs, and a helicopter.
Jensen said the key areas of research that will be the focus of the vessel’s activities are ocean acidification, plastic pollution and bycatch.
The perilous state of the world’s oceans was described in grim detail by Peter Haugan, program director at Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and member of the Ocean Panel program.
Overfishing, pollution, biodiversity losses and acidification all pose “significant threats”, he said, which if aren’t addressed could cost the global economy “a significant amount”.
“It’s really alarming, and there are a lot of reports on this,” said Haugan.
He said the prospect of losing all coral reefs by the end of the century due to climate change is “mind-boggling”.
Of plastic pollution, he said “significant action is needed, some has started, but more is needed”, noting the annual flow of plastic into the ocean is projected to triple by 2040, to 29 million metric tons per year.
“The world needs a sustainable ocean, sustainable ocean economies, and sustainable seafood,” he said.
Ocean Panel is a research program involving 250 experts around the world and involving 14 different countries. You can find Ocean Panel’s ‘Blue Papers’ and executive summary reports here.
Consumers aren’t likely to trust new feed ingredients that don’t come with third-party assurances about their sustainability, according to the head of the Marine Ingredients Organisations (IFFO).
During NASF’s feed seminar, several companies promoted their novel feed ingredients for aquaculture, such as protein from micro-bacteria, and omega-three from canola oil and algae.
Proponents of novel ingredients argue they provide a more sustainable alternative to wild-caught fish used to produce fishmeal and fish oil.
Petter Johannesen, CEO of IFFO, said from its own experience “just claiming sustainability will not suffice”. “Consumers will demand verification of responsibility and sustainability,” he said.
“It is concerning that so few new ingredients can provide a third-party certification of the claims of being sustainable,” said Johannesen.
By comparison, some 51% of all marine ingredients are certified sustainable by the MarinTrust, he said.
“No other natural raw material can show to this level of third-party certification,” he said.
He added marine ingredients will continue to be the cornerstone for aquaculture nutrition, while also supporting social and economic development. Recently, IFFO has joined forces with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership for an initiative that will place United Nations Development Goals at its core.
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) will be launching its new standard covering aquafeed on June 15, CEO Chris Ninnes revealed.
According to Ninnes, after an implementation period, meeting the standard’s new criteria will become mandatory for all certified farmers by September 2022.
The new standard is built on five principles: the first considers legal compliance regarding labor conditions and the environmental impact of the feedmill; the second and third ensure feedmills source from reliable suppliers and conduct necessary due diligence to ensure these meet codes of conduct; the fourth contains a marine improvement ladder to drive fishery sustainability over time; and the fifth addresses deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.
“We anticipate that pilot audits will take place from September onwards and that these will lead to the pre-assessment and eventual certification of feedmills engaged in these pilots,” said Ninnes. “That’s assuming that those assessments and pilot activities go as planned and that there are not major changes needed as a consequence of that work.”
With feedmills engaged with the standard during the pilot period, the ASC intends to then make it a mandatory requirement for all certified farmers from September 2022.
“This means that all farms must then source their feed from certified mills so effectively the full sustainability impacts of those feed supplies covering both land and marine ingredients will be incorporated into the assessments of the farm from that point forwards.”
Tracio — an Icelandic company focused on food sector traceability — won the Innovation Day prize at NASF 2020, with attendees voting it the most exciting startup presented.
One year on, COO Kevin Corey revealed the firm has some key commitments in place, including from a private equity firm, as it prepares a €1.5 million fundraising.
Straight after NASF, COVID-19 hit, limiting what it could go on to do, he noted. As a result, it invested in its technology, refining its system which traces food quality throughout the logistics chain. It has also moved its headquarters from Reykjavik to Norway.
It has worked on tracking salmon from the Nordics to a retailer in North America, identifying several spots in the chain where logistics could be improved, he said. It is also working with software giant IBM on building a “seafood trust network” covering Norway and Iceland, aiming to guarantee “full traceability”.
Seaguard’s technology solution is aimed at improving water purification practices. Company CEO Lars Garen was pitching for funding at NASF’s Seafood Innovation Day event.
While the benefits of doing this for humanity at large are obvious — especially considering demand for fresh water is due to exceed supply by 2030 — applications for seafood harvestors are also evident as a weapon in the fight against algal blooms.
Seaguard is currently testing its technology in pools with the aim of transferring the research to be applied to aquaculture settings, Garen said. The company is also involved in improving fish feed products.
The winner of the funding — to be announced on Wednesday– will receive NOK 100,000 ($12,000).
Dutch algal oil manufacturer Corbion discussed its recent life-cycle assessment as it demonstrated that its factory-produced product actually has a lower carbon footprint than traditional sources of fish oil used in aquafeed.
The assessment, reviewed by the International Organization of Standardization, covered the full supply chain of Corbion’s algal oil feed ingredient, AlgaPrimeDHA.
Diana Visser, director of sustainability at Corbion, attributed the low footprint to the locale of the AlgaPrime factory, located as it is in Brazil, next to a large sugarcane field.
“The sugarcane waste is used as a renewable source of energy to fully power the sugar mill and the algae facility,” said Visser, adding that sugarcane, when producing algal oil through fermentation, is a far more efficient source of sugar than wheat or corn.
“A hectare of land produces both the fuel and the feedstock to grow AlgaPrimeDHA, with zero-deforestation impacts confirmed by historical satellite data,” Visser said.
AlgaPrime’s full life-cycle assessment is currently under peer review, ahead of planned scientific publication later this year.
Pure Lobster, a land-based lobster producer based in Bergen, Norway was the latest company to pitch for funding during NASF’s Seafood Innovation Day event.
The firm aims to mass-produce Australian red claw lobster using recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) technology in Norway, COO Nikolai Eide said.
He said his firm was the first and only Norwegian firm to be producing the crustacean on land
The crustacean has the advantage of being highly fertile, fast-growing with a simple reproduction cycle, as well as being an omnivore that can be fed cheaply.
Using existing RAS technology along with the advantages of the species, Eide said red claw, which is currently farmed in Australian ponds, can be produced carbon-neutrally.
The firm has been conducting trials since 2019, he said, adding that the firm is aiming to go into commercial production in Q3 or Q4 this year. It is working closely with several partners, including universities, feed companies and hatcheries.
Faroese kelp grower Ocean Rainforest plans to launch a series A fundraise later in 2021, hoping to raise €6 million.
Its company pre-valuation puts it at €30m-€35m, based on the expansion of seaweed harvesting to more than 10,000 metric tons by the year 2025, said managing director Olavur Gregersen.
It wants to also expand its market position withing human foodstuffs and food additives; it launched business-to-business sales to swine farms some 18 months ago, and demand now exceeds supply, he said.
It has farmed off the Faroe Islands for around eight years and recently began seeding and harvesting in the Pacific Ocean, off California.
This year Ocean Rainforest hopes to commence international expansion with fermented seaweed products, and it will also participate in developing a pilot biorefinery, said Gregersen.
Norwegian startup SeaRAS is the first tool on the market for monitoring the potentially disastrous buildup of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels in closed-containment fish tanks, said CEO Eldar Lien.
The toxic compound has been identified by insurance companies as one of the chief risks to recirculating aquaculture systems, but until now, there has been no monitoring system for catching H2S at levels of less than 2 micrograms per liter, he said.
H2S can stunt fish growth at low levels, and cause mass mortalities at higher levels.
SeaRAS’ Aquasense uses sensors to measure air and water content simultaneously. Its technology is patent pending.
MicroClean’s innovation seeks to improve the cleaning of production line equipment using microwaves and ‘wet heat’, according to company developer Helle Evensen.
Pitching for funding at the Seafood Innovation Day segment of NASF, she said the technology provides a “chemical free and cost efficient way to eliminate all pathogens and biofilm”.
It can eliminate 99.9% of all pathogens on production equipment, she said. The reduction in chemical use makes it a more sustainable option, the company added.
The technology went through its first testing with a large Norwegian salmon producer in 2019, Evensen said. This, she added, went according to plan.
It can be applied to disinfect a conveyor belt on a production line. This means continuous production and elimination of pathogens without having to turn the machinery off, Evensen explained.
“In other words, our technology is an effective way to clean and disinfect plastic material because production never has to stop.”
Canada’s Blue Lion Labs is looking for further partners to collaborate with as it develops its machine learning and software solutions for the aquaculture sector.
It has initially targeted the farmed finfish sector, specifically salmon, though in the future it could look to aid the oyster and shrimp industries too, said CEO Jason Deglint.
It has worked with UK-headquartered marine technology firm OTAQ to develop an onsite, autonomous harmful algal bloom monitoring system; technology it aims to launch to market by the end of 2022.
Blue Lion also sees the potential to adapt its technology to monitor sea lice as well, said Deglint.
Seas of Norway, a seaweed farming and biotech company, was aiming to gain a slice of funding from investors as part of the Seafood Innovation Day segment of NASF.
CEO Lucas Gates was pitching for the business. He said that seaweed could mimic the growth seen in the oil industry from the 1970s.
His firm, made of two divisions, is looking for NOK 8 million ($970,000) in funding. It aims to convert seaweed into high-end protein as well as aquafeed.
Seaweed production is expected to grow five-fold by 2050, Gates added.
Presenting at NASF’s Innovation Day, Hawaiian firm Kuehnle AgroSystems (KAS) aims to help meet the increasing demand for natural seafood coloring derived from fermented algae, according to CEO Adelheid Kuehnle.
Farmed salmon flesh is naturally a grey color, unlike the familiar pink/red seen in wild fish. Traditionally the aquafeed sector has relied on synthesized coloring derived from petrochemicals, but preference for natural colorings is on the rise, said Kuehnle.
However, supplies of algae-derived astaxanthin are low, and industries such as health supplements can afford to pay a far higher price than aquafeed.
KAS claims to be able to produce vast quantities of natural astaxanthin in its “massively scalable”, low-cost dark fermentation plant.
It is seeking a $1.5 million investment to scale up, as it speaks with feed producers including Cargill and Skretting, said Kuehnle. She believes the firm’s first factory’s output would already be 75% re-sold.
If it can scale up as planned, KAS can hit gross profit of $70m after seven years, she claimed.
A regional study of Rogaland county in southern Norway has evaluated the effectiveness of various lice prevention strategies in the production area, the first of its kind according to project funder FHF.
According to their collected data, if all Rogaland producers embraced a post-smolt strategy, releasing fish into the sea at 500g in weight, the decreased time at sea could reduce the number of delousing treatments required by 50% from current levels.
When combined with the use of preventative measures such as lice skirts, electric fences and the like, a full 90% reduction in treatments could be achieved, FHF said.
In contrast, the division of Rogaland into four separate fallowing zones has had “little to no effect on lice infestations”.
“A measure that costs little but requires a bureaucratic change is to introduce a higher treatment threshold when sea temperature is low, and a lower limit when sea temperature is high,” the organization stressed in a video. “This could potentially reduce the need for delousing by 10%.”
The research organization has also helped to develop an early warning system, monitoring the flow of lice eggs and larvae on the current and acting as a “weather forecast” for lice numbers.
“From the data uploaded from all fish farms daily, we are able to predict when and where lice will strike. A warning five days before the infestation of infectious lice larvae will give the fish farmer time to implement preventative measures,” FHF added.
Full details of all FHF’s research into sea lice can be seen here.
It is conclusive that the world’s oceans are warming at an alarming rate; the question for Norway’s is Institute of Marine Research is how this will affect Northeast Atlantic fisheries.
According to their research which has yet to be submitted, climate change will provide a net benefit, with a majority of 39 stocks studied set to grow based on climate models by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Geir Huse, research director at IMR.
Semi-quantitative analysis shows only a minority of 39 stocks in the southern and northern North Sea fringes, and further north in the Arctic circle will be negatively affected. The Northeast Atlantic is home to some of the world’s biggest commercial fisheries.
“So a very big difference. A lot of positives but also some negatives,” said Huse.
Since its introduction to farms in Newfoundland, Canada three years ago, the lumpfish has proved a hit with local salmon farmers, according to Larry Hammell from the University of Prince Edward Island.
“According to the industry, the cleaner fish program has been very successful, there’s no treatments needed for sea lice in regions which previously had treatments,” he told listeners.
As a result, there are now plans to expand the use of cleaner fish across farms in both the provinces of Newfoundland and New Brunswick.
This comes alongside the use of multiple other strategies to control lice levels on Canada’s Atlantic coast, from increased usage of post-smolt facilities, placing extra focus on genetic selection for sea lice resistance, and improving national access to certain functional feeds.
“There is limited access to controls applied to entire sites or areas over a short period,” Hammell said, adding that Canadian infrastructure struggles to cope with the late summer period when both sea temperatures and lice levels are at their highest.
Opening up NASF’s ‘Ocean Science Day’ seminar, keynote speaker Peter Haugan said the world’s oceans could support six times more food production than currently.
The “surprising” finding followed research by 250 experts around the world commissioned as part of the Norway-led Ocean Panel program.
Haugan, program director at the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, said the findings demonstrate the huge potential of the oceans with better fisheries and environmental management.
Other findings show that oceans provide a much better return on investment than most other industries, with $2.8 trillion invested today yielding a net benefit of $15.5tn by 2050. On the negative side, climate change is forecast to reduce coral reef tourism by 90%, while some West African countries are forecast to see a 85% decline in fish stocks.
The Ocean Panel was founded by Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg in 2018, and jointly supported by 13 other heads of state.
You can find Ocean Panel’s ‘Blue Papers’ and executive summary reports here.
Last December, following publication of the research, the 14 participating countries — Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau, and Portugal — committed to sustainably manage nearly 30 million square kilometers of their national waters by 2025.
Ongoing efforts to reduce the use of medicinal treatments in Norwegian sea lice control continued to bring down figures in 2020, according to data presented by Lone Flyvholm, representing seafood federation Sjomat Norge.
Last year, just 683 chemical sea-lice treatments were recorded in Norway, less than a third of the figures from 2016, and down by 9% on the previous year. This also marked a return to the general downward trend after 2019 had seen an alarming 24% jump in such treatments, the first such reversal in five years.
Instead, uses of thermal and freshwater methods have continued to grow, as has the use of mechanical “flushers”. Thermal methods in particular accounted for just under half of all Norwegian lice treatments in 2020.
In total, farmers across Norway performed 3,666 salmon lice treatments last year, the highest total since 2014, yet chemical treatments notably accounted for only 18% of these – five years ago, this figure stood at 94%, Flyvholm’s data showed.
Assurance and risk management firm DNV is set to unveil its marine aquaculture forecast to 2050 tomorrow, June 9, at NASF.
The report will project the demand and supply for farmed fish and other seafood considering population growth, changes in living standards and dietary shifts; it stresses the need to tackle key sustainability barriers and that future demand for seafood can only be met sustainably with a wave of technological innovation in marine aquaculture, the company has said ahead of the launch, which has been timed to coincide with NASF.
Its previous report – on aquaculture through to 2030 – forecast the industry’s shift to “going digital” and moving offshore, predicting innovative formulated feeds, greater automation, and integrated multitrophic solutions.
It also predicted land-based aquaculture would become a game-changer.
Uncertainties revolved around the adoption of new technologies and the regulation of aquaculture; two factors which are unlikely to have changed a great deal in its new report, one would think.
Contact the authors [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
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Undercurrent News reported live from the North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) 2021, which was held online this June 8-10 as a result of its coronavirus-related postponement from March [...]
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