Frøya, Norway-headquartered salmon-farming firm SalMar has reported a harvest of 93,200 gutted weight tons (GWT) for the third quarter of this year – a substantial leap from the 60,300 GWT recorded in the corresponding period of last year and an all time high for the period in the company’s history.
However, with global salmon prices being lower in the quarter, the firm saw its profits dip.
In its Q3 2025 financial report, SalMar highlighted that its operational EBIT totaled NOK 711 million (USD 69.9 million, EUR 60.7 million), which was down from the NOK 1.04 billion (USD 102.2 million, EUR 88.8 million) it earned in Q3 2024. Revenues for the three-month period, meanwhile, increased from NOK 6.16 billion (USD 605.4 million, EUR 525.9 million) to NOK 7.85 billion (USD 771.5 million, EUR 670.2 million), with CEO Frode Arntsen attributing the increase to strong biological performance and positive cost development in Northern Norway, as well as a return to normal levels of superior grade fish in Central Norway.
By farming region, SalMar’s Central Norway operations harvested 47,000 GWT in Q3; Northern Norway produced 42,500 GWT; the firm’s Norskott Havbruk joint venture, also known as Scottish Sea Farms, harvested 7,200 GWT; and its Icelandic Salmon operations produced 3,800 GWT. No fish were harvested by SalMar Ocean – an offshore aquaculture subsidiary of SalMar’s – in the quarter, and the next one for the segment is not expected until Q2 2026.
For the full year of 2025, SalMar’s overall guidance remains unchanged at 299,000 GWT, which would represent a 19 percent increase compared with 2024.
Elsewhere in Q3, SalMar’s Sales and Industry segment, which sells all the fish the group harvests in Norway, achieved strong results, generating operating revenues of more than NOK 7.7 billion (USD 757.7 million, EUR 657.4 million), which was up from nearly NOK 6.2 billion (USD 609.3 million, EUR 529.3 million) in the same period a year ago. Its operational EBIT increased by NOK 70 million (USD 6.9 million, EUR 6 million) to NOK 534 million (USD 52.5 million, EUR 45.6 million).
“Week after week of record export volumes out of Norway, combined with rising price levels, shows the demand for our products is very strong. This is something we also experience daily in our dialogue with customers worldwide,” Arntsen said.
Looking ahead to 2026, Arntsen believes the salmon farming industry’s volume growth will contract compared to this year, and despite global uncertainty caused by increasing and fluctuating tariffs “that are generally bad news for trade,” he said he has a positive outlook for the road ahead.
“We continue to gain more customers that want to eat salmon, and we’ve increased volumes and reduced cost levels,” he said.
To ensure future sustainable harvest growth, SalMar has initiated development of a new closed system for post-smolt production with partners that will see three such units ready to operate in Central Norway in 2027. Arntsen said the benefits of these units will include better utilization of existing sites, lower sea lice exposure at critical times of the year, and improved biological performances in terms of survival and growth.
“We are doing this because we want to become even better, strengthening our focus on using the right technology to achieve optimal production on the salmon’s terms,” Arntsen said.
