Salmon Farming

It begins with selecting healthy broodstock for breeding. Eggs are collected and fertilized with sperm in the hatcheries. Once the eggs are fertilized the young salmon is raised in hatcheries. Fertilized eggs are kept in incubation trays or tanks with controlled temperature and water conditions. The eggs hatch into alevins – tiny fish with the orange-coloured yolk sac attached. This sac provides the fish with all the nutrients they need at this early stage. They spend their first months in freshwater, just as they would in the wild. At 8-10 weeks, the alevins enter the fry stage. They will have absorbed their yolk and have grown in size a little. The fry are rising to the water surface signalling that they are ready to feed themselves.

The fry are transferred from the hatchery into freshwater tanks and will continue to grow for another 8-10 weeks, progressing to parr stage.

At the freshwater stage the fish will reach a size when they are each vaccinated to protect them from any diseases. The salmon will also start to take on a silvery colour and a more streamlined shape, indicating that they have undergone the process of smoltification – a series of physiological, morphological and behavioral changes that prepares young salmon for seawater.

In Norway, smolts are mainly released into seawater twice a year. In recent years, the industry has invested in freshwater facilities that can grow the smolt larger, up to 1,000 grams, thus shortening the time at sea.

Once smolts are ready, they’re transferred to sea pens in coastal waters. These are large netted enclosures in the ocean where the salmon will spend the majority of their growing period. Here, the salmon are grown to market size. Regular monitoring of water quality, feeding, and health is crucial during this stage.

Harvesting is spread evenly across the year, although most harvesting takes place in the last quarter of the year as this is the period of best growth.

After a site is harvested, the location is fallowed for between 2-6 months before the next generation is put to sea at the same location.

When they reach harvestable size, the fish are transported to our processing plants where they are slaughtered and gutted. We always focus on handling our salmon as carefully and gently during harvesting and ensure that fish are in the calmest possible state throughout the process.

We ensure that our fish are slaughtered in the most humane and effective way possible, by using percussive or electrical stunning.

Freshness is everything when it comes to fish, and we have always set the highest standards in getting ours from fjord to fork in the shortest possible time.

Journey times are always minimised, and processing units are located close to points of consumption. This not only guarantees freshness, but also ensures that our food products can be expertly developed, prepared, and packaged to suit the specific consumer demands of that, local, market.