Marine Harvest CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog. (Photo: Marine Harvest)

Marine Harvest achieves its 'best year' in 2016 despite industry challenges

Marine Harvest has released its 2016 report stressing the firm’s many accomplishments, mainly thanks to fish feed, fish farming, and sales and marketing areas, but also concerns about the biological challenges facing the industry, in particular sea lice.

The Group’s operational EBIT amounted to EUR 700.2 million, representing an increase of 101.9 per cent from EUR 346.8 million reported in 2015. This growth is mainly attributed to increased salmon prices driven by strong demand and decline in supply.

“ I am proud of our accomplishments, and I am convinced that we are well positioned to lead growth and develop new, healthy and resource-friendly products through our integrated value chain. The world needs new solutions for food production, and Marine Harvest intends to be part of that solution, pointed out the group’s CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog.

The entrepreneur also stressed their bold vision of continuous transformation in fish-feed production, farming, processing, product development, and sales and marketing, all of which are essential for continuous growth in this rapidly developing industry, which they call Leading the Blue Revolution.

Total revenues in 2016 amounted to EUR 3,510.2 million, an increase of 13 per cent from 2015, thanks to higher prices.

Aarskog revealed they are developing and testing closed-containment solutions but without discarding their existing facilities, particularly their new/expanded land-based smolt facilities.

He also announced that in terms of sustainability, the group’s ambition is to have all its farming operations ASC certified by 2020, which means that they must adhere to strict operational requirements which they believe contribute to transformational change.

During last year, Marine Harvest obtained ASC certification for 20 new Atlantic salmon centres, bringing the accumulated total to 59 sites, which represents 25 per cent of all its farms and 38 per cent of the certified sites worldwide.

The CEO recognised that sea lice continues being the main challenge facer but he explained that it has become apparent that sea lice numbers can be brought under control through increased use of non-medicinal treatment methods.

“Although we still have a way to go, we increased our use of non-medicinal tools in 2016 and expect to reap the benefits of our efforts going forward,” the CEO pointed out.

On the other hand, the entrepreneur said they expect their newest fish-feed plant, which will be located in Scotland and is on schedule for completion in 2018 as the necessary planning permissions have been granted. In 2016, the group produced approximately 60 per cent of their global fish feed requirement in-house.

In the CEO’s view, many salmon markets globally remain relatively immature, due to a limited product range and, in some cases, a lack of knowledge about how to prepare the fish. He stressed that in response to this situation, they are constantly striving to improve their product portfolio and make high-quality seafood more accessible to the modern consumer.

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