Land-based salmon-farming company Salmon Evolution has begun to sell post-smolt to salmon-farming companies to utilize its overcapacity and said its delayed harvest strategy paid off in a higher price achievement in Q4 2024.
In its latest operational update, the hybrid flow-through aquaculture firm said it achieved a Q4 2024 harvest of 1,729 metric tons (MT) head-on gutted (HOG) salmon. That total is significantly up from the 1,104 MT harvest it posted in Q4 2023 – the first quarter that the company’s farming segment reached breakeven EBITDA.
The company’s harvest weight in Q4 2024 also increased to 3.8 kilograms HOG, an increase of 15 percent compared to Q3 2024. The company pushed some of its harvests in Q3 2024 to Q4 2024 to maximize the price it gets for its salmon – a strategy that it said paid off.
For the full year, the company harvested 4,891 MT of HOG salmon in total, and the company said it managed to achieve a price realization of NOK 82 (USD 7.14, EUR 6.98) per kilogram, with 96 percent of its salmon reaching superior grade.
"Salmon Evolution achieved significant milestones in 2024 with solid growth in harvest volumes and strong operational progress through the year,” Salmon Evolution CEO Trond Håkon Schaug-Pettersen said.
The company said the performance of its salmon has also been solid, with strong feeding and biomass gain in November and December. It said data-driven optimization is yielding results, with strong key-performance indicators for its salmon and low mortality. Overall, the ninth batch of salmon in its facility has experienced 2.6 percent mortality.
Biomass production in Q4 2024 also reached 1,518 MT, the second-highest on record and up from Q3 2024.
“We are especially proud of our excellent biological results, introducing a new standard of salmon farming and giving us a great momentum going into 2025,” Schaug-Pettersen said.
Included among its 4,891 MT harvest was a sale of post-smolt to a “well-known salmon farmer” in December, as the company had an excess capacity at its Indre Harøy facility in the second half of 2024. The company said it delivered 150,000 smolt comprising roughly 700 grams each to the farmer – or roughly 105 MT of live-weight salmon.
“The group has been performing well after transfer to sea, a testament to the good fish-health at Indre Harøy,” Salmon Evolution said.
The company secured overcapacity on smolt in the first half of 2024 after it experienced smolt quality issues in Q1 2024 that reduced its stocking volumes.
“This highlights the need for stable delivery of high-quality smolt all year round, particularly during the cold winter season, where challenges with respect to the smoltification process typically are an issue,” the company said at the time.
To alleviate the issue, it acquired the overcapacity of smolt through external sources and upsized its stocking volumes in Q2 2024.
Those increased post-smolt volumes solved its smolt quality issues and left it with excess capacity, which it said it is now utilizing for external sale. Another delivery of post-smolt is planned for January, and the company said it has already secured an overcapacity of smolt for 2025 which it will utilize for more deliveries.
