Norwegian land based salmon farm on track

PLANS for Norway\’s first commercial land based aquaculture production plant for salmon in the east of the country are moving ahead.
The company behind the project is Fredrikstad Seafoods, which is largely owned by Nordic Aquafarms, the company behind a recently announced $500 million land based salmon farm in the US state of Maine.
The company has said that while the phase one construction for a 2,000-tonne salmon and slaughterhouse facility outside the town of Fredrikstad, 40 miles south of Oslo, are firmly on schedule, production will eventually rise in stages to around 6,000 tonnes.
The first production should be ready by the end of 2019 and Nordic CEO, Erik Heim (pictured), said it has already been sold to Denmark, where Nordic Aquafarms has production facilities.
Meanwhile, its engineers are now working on a fast track development for the adjacent 16,000 square metre landsite. The second phase expansion will involve the addition of 4,200 tonnes of new production capacity and a smolt facility.
Construction of phase two will be based on a new generation of designs, developed to achieve optimal capital efficiency and fish welfare. A range of innovations will be implemented to improve the performance of the land based production method on a true industrial scale.
Nordic Aquafarms, which has invested heavily in water purification and recycling, describes itself as a ‘progressive producer’ in land based fish farms with production facilities in Norway and Denmark.
Established in 2014 in Fredrikstad, the company said it had rapidly developed into a considerable business operation with international involvements. It is also backed by a financially solid group of investors.