Atlantic Sapphire has appointed Jon-Birger Løvik as its new chief operating officer.
Løvik was named the director of aqua technology and interim COO of the land-based salmon farmer in April 2021, and has been in charge of the company’s Miami, Florida, U.S.A.-based salmon farming operation since August 2021. According to the company, he has been involved directly and indirectly with the company since it was founded in 2010.
Løvik previously served as the managing director of Atlantic Sapphire Denmark from June 2015 to December 2018. He has also been the production manager for Villa Organic, a 30,000-metric-ton capacity salmon-farming company based in Finnmark, Norway.
Løvik was brought on as interim COO following the departure of Dharma Rajeswaran in September 2021. Rajeswaran has since been hired as the COO of Proximar.
“Mr. Løvik and I have been working together since we entered the fish-farming industry, and I personally know that his experience as a fish farmer is unmatched,” Andreassan said at the time.
Løvik is also a co-founder of Atlantic Sapphire, and the CEO of Alsco AS, the company's largest shareholder.
The announcement came in the company’s monthly update, in which it said the second phase of development of the Miami recirculating aquaculture system facility will come online in early 2023. The update said its salmon is now for sale at around 2,000 different locations in North America.
Counting both early-stage fish and older fish, the company currently has just under 2.4 million kilograms of standing biomass. Batches of salmon introduced in mid-2020 have had “stable conditions” and are delivering “great biological performance," Atlantic Sapphire said.
Once the second phase of the project is complete, Atlantic Sapphire said it anticipates its annual harvest volume capacity will reach 25,000 metric tons of head-on, gutted salmon.
Photo courtesy of Atlantic Sapphire
