Ålesund, Norway-based cod-farming company Ode harvested its first batch of fish in November 2022, and in 2023, the company delivered 4,000 metric tons (MT) of fresh cod to market.
In 2024, the company is planning to increase that total to 12,000 MT, and Ode Founder and CEO Ola Kvalheim told SeafoodSource that the future of the company and for farmed cod looks promising.
“Farmed cod will be an important part of the future seafood supply,” Kvalheim said.
Kvalheim, who promoted the company’s farmed cod at the 2024 Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. in March, said his company and other farmers will become a key part of the overall cod marketplace as production ramps up.
Farmed cod’s success is already evident in Norway’s seafood export statistics. In Q1 2024, farmed cod made up 15 percent of the value of all fresh cod exports. For FY 2023, export volumes of fresh farmed cod increased 125 percent from 2022 to 8,700 MT, while the export volumes of wild caught cod decreased by 20 percent.
According to Kvalheim, those statistics show a larger trend in the marketplace. Wild-caught cod supplies are becoming constrained as global demand for the species and seafood increases as cod quotas decrease. The 2024 Barents Sea cod quota, the largest source of wild-caught cod, was cut by another 20 percent to 453,427 MT – nearly half the 885,600 MT available in 2021.
The supply of farmed cod, in contrast, is only going to continue to grow. Ode currently has access to enough farming sites in Norway to produce 25,000 MT of cod each year, and the company plans to ramp up to that number and beyond.
Kvalheim said High Liner Foods' recent investment in Norcod is another sign of the promising future of cod farming.
“They’re a large, highly regarded company, and for them to invest in the farmed cod industry just shows how far we have come,” Kvalheim said. “It adds credibility to what we are doing, I think it’s a sign of more to come.”
One of the big advantages that farmed cod has over its wild-caught counterpart is its predictable supply – a factor that Kvalheim said has become increasingly important in light of supply-chain challenges since 2021.
“I think the focus around the world now is to make sure your supply chain is solid after Covid, but also with some of the geopolitics going around right now,” he said.
Huge fluctuations in the supply of wild-caught cod have also contributed to a shift in market preference for farmed cod, Kvalheim said.
“How can you build a market of, let’s say 1 million tons, and then five years later it’s 200,000 tons – and then it’s going to go back to 1 million before going back down to 200,000. It’s impossible to have a consistent market and develop products and value chains on top of that,” Kvalheim said.
Kvalheim said he believes the farmed cod sector could replicate the success of the farmed salmon industry.
“I think that has been the absolute success story of the salmon industry. It’s available all year long, its [supply] grows with the market so you’re able to develop new channels, new verticals, new products, with the customers,” Kvalheim said.
Farmed cod allows for a market-driven approach to production, where the supply grows with the demand, rather than spiking or dropping depending on quotas. That stable supply allows the industry to create a market for the product more easily than suddenly needing to find a market for a glut of cod, according to Kvalheim.
“If you have a regular product, you can build step by step, gradually, all year long, year after year,” Kvalheim said.
Farmed cod also has another major advantage in that it's parasite-free. Kvalheim said there is currently work being done to officially certify that farmed cod is parasite-free, which could open up markets for additional product forms.
“That’s a very important advantage, especially when you’re going into sushi, sashimi, poke bowl salads, ceviche, cold-smoked products, etcetera,” he said. “The reason wild cod is not in those is because it’s not parasite-free.”
Farmed cod offers a new option for sushi chefs, Kvalheim said.
“That’s absolutely a mega-trend that is going to continue to grow,” Kvalheim said.
Farmed cod is also perfect as a center-of-the-plate prtein, and based on market testing, farmed cod tests evenly with its wild counterpart in flavor, color, and texture, which means consumers are already familiar with what it’s like to cook and eat, according to Kvalheim.
With significant tailwinds, Ode is now focusing on increasing production, annually doubling the volume of cod it produces each year. That annual growth rate will eventually even out, but he said Ode will still have “solid” growth to take on new customers and new markets – or offer existing customers more product as those customers also grow.
“We are still in the early growth phase of this industry. In the last three to four years it has been really coming alive,” he said. “In the long term, we have all the growth ahead of us.”
Prices have also been favorable for farmed cod, a sign the product is being well-received by customers, Kvalheim said.
“The value keeps growing quicker than the volume,” he said.
For Ode, the European market was the first area where the company was successful, but it has also seen sales rise in Asia and the Middle East. The company recently started moving small volumes of product into the U.S., and the U.S. market could be significant for the company “from what we’re hearing from the customer’s perspective,” Kvalheim said.
Kvalheim acknowledged a previous push to commercialize farmed salmon failed in the early 2010s, but said the industry future “very, very positive."
“We keep saying that the fun part is still ahead of us,” he said.
