Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) farming was first commercially explored in Norway in the 1980s following the breakthrough of juvenile production, but the industry disappeared after just a few years. Cod aquaculture re-emerged around the start of the millennium, again mainly in Norway but also in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Iceland.
At that time, juvenile cod production technology was further developed and large hatcheries, based on intensive production systems similar to those used for Mediterranean sea bass and sea bream, were introduced.
Investments in hatcheries and on-growing farm sites accelerated and, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), within a few years an annual production capacity of around 60 million juveniles and around 400 farm sites were established in Norway alone. This corresponded to a theoretical annual production capacity of about 180,000 metric tons (MT), said the FAO.
However, the financial market crisis in 2008 paired with challenging biological problems forced most of these ventures out of business. As a result, Norway’s farmed cod production totaled 15,177 MT last year, down from 20,621 MT in 2010 and 19,712 MT in 2009.
More than half (7,735 MT) of the Scandinavian country’s farmed cod was exported last year, mostly to the European Union. It exported 10,520 MT in 2010. At the same time, the average f.o.b. export price increased from NOK 25.08 (EUR 3.35/ USD 4.12) per kilogram in 2010 to NOK 26.75 (EUR 3.57/ USD 4.39) per kilogram in 2011.
Spain remains the largest market and imported 2,075 MT of Norwegian farmed cod in 2011.
With an abundance of wild cod now available to Norway and its core export markets, the market price of cod has stayed low and this has certainly impacted farmed production. However, there’s no question of cod farming being consigned to the aquaculture scrapheap.
“I think there is definitely a future for farmed cod, it’s just that maybe they have started a little bit too early,” said Johan Kvalheim of the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC).
Kvalheim explained that production costs are moving in the right direction because the country’s next generation of cod is growing much faster and achieving greater weight.
“I think the magic weight for cod in terms of farming is 4 kilograms-plus. If you get farmed cod above that, then you start to make money on it,” he said, pointing out that fish of just one or two kilograms means producers don’t get the big loins that markets prefer.
One of the few remaining companies left in the sector is Codfarmers, which has seen its market share increase to 95 percent following the contraction of the industry. The group sells a lot of its cod under the premium brand “Strøm.”
Strøm’s launch into the Norwegian retailer Norgesgruppen is regarded as one of the most successful fish launches ever in Norway. According to Kvalheim, Norgesgruppen calls Strøm “the best product ever launched in the fish category.” He said the chain is particularly happy with the product because it’s a whitefish product that’s branded and packaged in the same way as the high-end “Salma,” which is probably the best-known salmon product in Norway.
In the first-quarter of 2012, Codfarmers sold 83,500 Strøm back loin products, representing 186 MT of round weight. However, most of its production comes in the second half of the year.
As Kvalheim points out, consumers are not buying cod because it is or isn’t farmed; they are buying it because they like the taste and the texture.
