Erik Holvik has been appointed chief commercial officer of Grieg Seafood and will take up the position on 1 October, the Bergen, Norway-headquartered salmon farming group has confirmed.
Formerly sales director of Mowi Markets Norway, Holvik will join Grieg's executive management team and establish Grieg’s integrated sales and market organization. He will drive the development and execution of the company’s downstream efforts and global commercial strategy, the company said.
Holvik began his career with Coast Seafood in 2003, where he worked for four years in the company’s VAP department. Since 2011, he has held various roles within sales, trading, and towards the retail market in Mowi. From 2013 onwards, he helped build the company’s sales organization in Bergen.
“I have had great years in Mowi where I have learnt a lot, been part of a strong professional environment and worked with fantastic colleagues. Still, it was impossible to turn down the opportunity to create something brand new in Grieg Seafood. I look forward to building a new sales organization and to bring out the market potential of the company. This will be a very exciting journey and I am looking forward to getting started,” Holvik said.
“In Grieg Seafood, we have very exciting years ahead of us," Grieg CEO Andreas Kvame said. "By 2025, we will grow sustainably, we will improve our production cost and we will evolve from being a pure supplier of salmon to becoming an innovation partner for selected customers. I am very pleased that Erik will join our team to develop our new downstream efforts. He has the experience, the knowledge, and not least, the enthusiasm needed to succeed.”
In May 2020, Grieg Seafood announced that the sales partnership with Bremnes Seashore will be dissolved and that the company would set up its own, fully integrated sales organization, in line with its new business strategy.
The group posted operational earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of NOK 240.4 million (USD 24.9 million, EUR 22.1 million) before fair value adjustment of biomass for the first-quarter of this year, down from NOK 267.5 million (USD 27.7 million, EUR 24.6 million) in the corresponding period of last year. For the same three months, its revenues increased by 25 percent to almost NOK 2.06 billion (USD 213.1 million, EUR 189.8 million), while the total volume of salmon harvested in quarter increased by 24 percent year-on-year to 18,360 metric tons (MT).
Photo courtesy of Grieg Seafood
