The total volume of salmon harvested by the Bakkafrost Group in its native Faroe Islands in the second quarter of this year increased by 300 metric tons (MT) compared with the corresponding period of last year to 12,900 MT of head-on gutted (HOG) weight fish.
According to the group’s latest trading update, all of this volume came from its farming operations in the north.
However, for the same three months, Bakkafrost’s subsidiary, the Scottish Salmon Company (SSC) achieved a harvest of 7,900 MT, down from 9,738 MT in Q2 2019. Bakkafrost acquired its majority stake in SSC in October 2019.
Also in the Q2 2020, Bakkafrost sold 22,100 MT of feed, an increase of 3,200 MT year-on-year.
Its full second-quarter 2020 report will be released on 25 August.
In 2019, Bakkafrost harvested 65,109 MT of salmon, with the 57,184 MT from the Faroes eclipsing the previous year’s 44,591 MT. At the same time, with 60 sites across the Scottish west coast and Hebridean Islands, SSC produced 33,799 MT.
As previously reported, a severe storm in February this year caused the loss of around 1.2 million fish, and led the group to lower its Faroese production projection for 2020 to around 50,000 MT HOG salmon, while Scotland’s harvest is expected to increase to 39,000 MT.
Bakkafrost anticipates releasing 15 million smolts in the Faroe Islands this year, compared to 12.7 million smolts in 2019 and 12.6 million smolts in 2018. The smolt release in Scotland is expected to be 10.7 million smolts, compared to 12.4 million smolts in 2019 and 8.6 million smolts in 2018.
Depending on external sales, Bakkaforst also anticipates selling 110,000 MT of fish feed this year.
Photo courtesy of Bakkafrost
