New salmon processing plant opens in Bergen

A new salmon processing factory has opened in Bergen, Norway to meet growing export demand.

The company behind the project is First Seafood, which is part of the larger Insula group and, until recently, had been used by that group to produce fish cakes. Insula’s parent company is Kverva, the investment vehicle set up by SalMar Chairman Gustav Witzoe.

First Seafood managing director Andreas Sundnes said: “We see a significant increase in demand in the export market for salmon fillet products and this factory will form part of an already established structure in First Seafood for the purchase, production and sale of salmon products.

“Together with our existing factory in Kongsvinger (near Oslo), the new factory in Bergen will give us a capacity of up to 30,000 tonnes of salmon products a year.”

First Seafood AS, which produces a wide range of products for customers all over the world, has signed a 25 year lease on the premises and says it is there for the long term.

The choice to establish production in Bergen is also based on good access to seafood expertise in the region, as well as great access to raw material from a number of players with farming in Western Norway.

First Seafood said that with the new factory it will become a significant player in processed salmon products in the world market and will strengthen its sales and operations organisation to be able to serve markets in Asia, Europe and the USA.

The new factory announcement also said First Seafood and the food processing company BAADER have developed and adopted ground-breaking technology at Kongsvinger.

Modulf Barstad, BAADER Norway’s sales manager, said: “This has happened in close co-operation between skilled seafood people at First Seafood and a leading technical development environment at BAADER.”

Former PM Erna Solberg at First Seafood’s Oslo plant