Our vision is to set the standard for the future of aquaculture. At a family-owned business with a long legacy it is important to us to operate in a way that will allow the next generation to continue the journey.

Eide Fjordbruk is not among the largest and will never be, but we can strive to be the best in many other aspects. This is what our vision is all about.

We want to lead and be an example for others to follow. We want to farm sustainable food in the sea the future and the generations to come.

We care about each other, our fish and the environment that we live and operate in. We have a strong passion for what we do and want to contribute actively to develop and improve our industry for the future.

We are also convinced that the future for salmon production in Norway is in the sea, and that it is our fjords and clean water that has been and will continue to be our primary competitive edge in a global competitive market.

At the same time, we recognize the challenges of open net pens and take them seriously, realizing that we need new solutions to tackle the problems caused by in particular the salmon lice.

We therefore want to invest in developing salmon farming in the sea using new technology and tools.

In total 66 persons completed the survey, and the replies are well distributed among internal and external stakeholders, and between the different subcategories of stakeholders.

The respondents has been asked to categorize 40 different sustainability topics after importance for our business and operations from «Not very important»(score 1), «A little important» (score 2), «Pretty important» (score 3) «Important» (Score 4) to «Very important» (score 5). In addition to the 40 predefined topics the respondents had the option to add custom topics they considered to be important. The survey was done anonymously.

Since some stakeholder groups (mainly employees and suppliers) have more respondents than others all stakeholder groups are weighted equally in the calculation of scores.

As a result, a respondent’s reply may be weighted differently depending on which subcategory of stakeholders he or she belongs to. All topics with an average score above 3 are shown in the matrix below. Those with average score 4 from both internal and external stakeholders are considered the most important topics for our sustainability reporting.

The year 2020

Eide has been a food producer for 50 years. My grandfather Knut Johan Eide started farming trout in a freshwater lake and my father Knut Frode Eide took the company out into the sea and started salmon farming in a large scale. In our company we work to continuously improve every little detail in the production, from roe to harvested fish. As a third-generation food producer in the sea it is our focus to create values and high-quality food in the most effective and rational way. The production need to be done in a way that doesn’t reduce the future generation’s ability to do the same. We want to develop our food production in the sea by bringing the biology even closer to nature, develop technology to improve the biology, and communicate with the people who are going to eat our fish in order to set the standard for the future of aquaculture.

The year 2020 was supposed to be a year where we celebrated our 50 years anniversary as a company but ended up as a socially challenging year for all humans. Every company is a product of the people working there. Because of this, I am particularly happy that we have employees who care deeply about the fish and who work passionately every day to continuously improve. We deliver good results financially, but also on sustainability aspects such as the local environmental and greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we know that we need to invest and to change in order to grow. We also need to adapt to new expectations and to new consumer demands in the future. Our employees are the most important resource we have, and we are proud to have the best and most dedicated people in our company.

Performance

Covid-19 has turned 2020 into a year that everyone will remember. It has been challenging and difficult on a social level, where we could not meet face to face to discuss and find solutions. From a market perspective it has also been difficult, as the important HoReCa segment has been down for a large part of the year. This has led to reduced prices on salmon, which has also had a significant impact on our sales and our profit. However, the situation has also created new markets that will remain after the pandemic is over. Many customers who would normally only buy salmon on a restaurant has had to buy the fish at as supermarket and prepare it themselves. This brings the consumer closer to the product and teaches them important skills in how to prepare and handle the fish. We believe that the consumers will require more from the food that they eat, like knowing how and where it is produced. In Eide we have therefore started the process of launching our own brand, Salmon Zero.

From an operational perspective, 2020 has been a year where everybody in Eide has contributed to a massive development of the company. We have managed to cut the mortality rate in our production in half compared to 2019, with some sites reaching as little as 2 % mortality. We have produced salmon from a regular smolt to harvest weight of 5 kgs in only 7.5 months. We have reached a record production volume in a year of 15,367 tonnes, and we have managed to reach the strict lice criteria of the traffic light regulatory system on all our sites. In addition to this we have launched what we believe is the worlds first carbon neutral salmon. On this note, it is fantastic that we also managed to cut the greenhouse gas emissions in the lifecycle of our salmon from 3.99 to 2,95 kg CO2e per kg salmon produced, almost a 30% reduction in a year. We also created our first greenhouse gas accounts so that we can monitor and follow the development in emissions in our value chain and implement measures to reduce the emissions further.

This work will continue going forward. With the recent acquisition of Nordfjord Research station we want to find and develop new feed ingredients that will help us against our ultimate goal of producing salmon with zero greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we have started the process of electrifying our fleet of farming vessels as well as all our farms.

The future

I am very proud of my colleagues in Eide. Colleagues who has stood up and worked together to overcome challenges and turn the downs into valuable experiences. The more you practice, the more luck will also have. We will put in the training hours needed to set the standard for the future of aquaculture. To use the sea in the best possible way to produce high quality, healthy food for generations. We will make mistakes, because when you try to expand and move boundaries you need to make mistakes and learn from them. Even though we are in an area with yellow and red traffic lights, we will use that to our advantage, work harder, change and adapt faster, and reach the future sooner and in better shape.

I’m a very proud third generation food producer in the sea. I’m incredibly proud of what we do and of the food that we produce. However, there are many who have doubts about our industry and that have many questions concerning how we operate, how we treat our fish and how we treat the nature around us. This is a good and healthy sign. At the same time, it is very important the we as food producers tell the story of how we produce our food, where we are coming from and how we see the future. Even though our costumers come from all over the world, we still rely on the support of our local community here in Norway where we operate. Our advantages here are huge, and if we use them wisely, we can maintain a leading position in aquaculture also into the future.

But, to achieve this, we need to tell it to everybody and not only to ourselves. Eide therefore want to open the visitor center Salmon Eye early next year. The center is going to be a monument for knowledge , information, innovation and development.

It shall be independent of Eide Fjordbruk and contribute to put the relevant challenges on the agenda, while promoting the possibilities and innovative power needed to solve them.

In Eide we are performance and goal driven. We know that the future is shaped by hard work, innovation and optimism. I say as my father used to say; We don’t quit, we keep going until we die.

Sondre Eide
CEO and third generation salmon farmer