Our employees and the local communities where we operate are the heroes in the story about Eide. It is therefore crucial that we manage to keep our workers safe, while at the same time offering them a fun and challenging workplace in the local community. Here you can see how we are doing and track our progress.
The people working in our company are the heroes in the story about Eide Fjordbruk. Our employees care about the fish, each other and the value of safe jobs in the communities. Our primary objective is to ensure that it is safe to work in Eide Fjordbruk and that everybody gets home safely.
Background
Aquaculture is a profession with many risk factors for both people and fish and it is therefore very important with focus on HSE. HSE is important both to us in Eide and our employees, but also to our external stakeholders.
Measures
A safe place to work in our opinion is a job where you can work safely and feel safe that your job will still be there tomorrow. In practice this implies that we put the safety of our people first and also invest in knowledge and development to maintain high qualified jobs in the communities also for the next generation.
We have a dedicated system in place to handle HSE-risks and continuously perform risk assessments related to HSE and register and follow up deviations and incidents.
We have separate safety representatives in each region and have regular dialog and inspections together with them.
Our employees have access to a free yearly health control, extended health insurance and regularly access to a chiropractor to prevent injuries. All our employees are also equipped with safety radios connected to a 24/7 alarm center.
Results
In 2020 we had two work related injuries that led to absence. Neither of the incidents led to permanent injuries. All incidents are followed up in our HSE monitoring system.
The total absence is on the same, low level as in 2019 of approx. 2%. Absence over 14 days increased, while absence below 14 days decreased compared to 2019.
A diverse and certified workplace for apprenticeship
Eide Fjordbruk is an important employer in many communities and a certified company to apprenticeship. We normally have around six apprentices amongst our employees. We also have a close cooperation with the aquaculture education program of the local high school Fusa Vidaregåande skule. We also receive Seafood Trainees through NCE Seafood Innvation Cluster where we are a member company.
We have a diverse workplace with employees from Sweden, Germany, Lithuania, Malaysia, Poland and Syria in addition to our Norwegian employees. Our employees are mostly located in the communities where we operate.
We have 51 employees and 34 of these are permanent positions. We also have 17 temporary employees, mostly apprentices and personnel helping us out in weekends and summer vacations.
«The most important is to have fun»
A safe workplace is a place where people are happy and feel seen and included. To achieve this, we believe that it is important to have fun together. Having fun together is an important motto for Eide and a parameter that we measure every year in our employee surveys (on a scale from 1-5, where 5 is the highest score).
Eight of our employees are women. 16% of all our employees and 18% of the permanent positions are held by women. The Director of the Board is a woman. The average salary for all women in the company is 93% of the average salary for men (average across all types of positions and roles). The main reason for the difference is that we have a higher female share amongst our apprentices.
Local activity is an important part of our communities. All rural communities need good meeting places and activities to be attractive places to live and work.
Our fish farms are located in rural areas and we depend on access to highly qualified and skilled personnel from these communities. We can only achieve this if the people thrive and have fun here. Therefore, it is important to us to support different teams and activities in the communities where we operate. Eide Fjordbruk is proud to support and sponsor a range of local sports and cultural teams and associations.
We also believe in the importance of local suppliers and businesses. Therefore, we try to purchase most of what we need from local or regional suppliers and businesses when this is possible. We hope that this will contribute to good communities also in the future.
In Eide we have a zero tolerance for corruption and other work- related crime. According to our materiality analysis this is an area that is also important to our stakeholders.
We are a small and transparent business, and our main focus is to build and maintain good attitudes and relations based on mutual trust. Reliability is one of our five core values and we shall be trustworthy. We also expect the same from our customers, suppliers, partners and employees.
In addition to our core values, we have implemented procedures to reduce the opportunities to break the rules and values. We ensure this through e.g., close involvement from owner to operator and segregation of duties between the farms and the office and with our external accountant.
Happy and health employees with good terms also contribute to reduce the chance that someone might feel pressured to or the need to break the law or our internal procedures.
We have not identified and cases or suspected cases of corruption in 2020.
The debate about the aquaculture industry and its impact on the environment and surrounding ecosystems is often in the media. In addition to the local impact our industry has, the global sustainability and climate debate is also increasing its focus on sustainable food production.
The debate is complex, it follows political divides and is sometimes characterized by populism, ideology and economical incentives and interests. Science and fact- based knowledge are frequently challenged by myths, undocumented opinions, misleading information and alternative facts.
With our visitor center in Rosendal, Eide Fjordbruk wants to contribute to science and fact-based knowledge, and put local challenges, solutions and innovations in a global context, with a special attention to the environmental aspects of the production.
From the harbor in Rosendal the visitors will embark on a journey in a fully electric vessel transporting the guests silently through the water to nearby Snilstveitøy.
With its unique design, Salmon Eye will be an icon and at the same time offer an exciting learning experience for the guests to the center. Salmon Eye aim to be a monument for sustainable food production in the sea.
Here the visitors will both learn, engage actively and be able to provide their own ideas on how to make aquaculture even more sustainable in the future.
We plan to open the center in the first half of 2022.
The life cycle
Together with Kristiansand Zoo Eide Fjordbruk has applied for a visitor license in Agder county. We are very excited about the project and the possibility to show off Norwegian salmon in this great arena. We are hoping for a positive reply from the regulatory authorities processing the application.
The concept is based on creating a visitor center with a rich content including a salmon aquarium with comparative and real-life cycle installations showing the salmons journey from roe to adult.
In addition, we will install exhibitions showing equipment and design to show the technological development of the industry up to today.
The center will accommodate custom visitor tours from the center to the actual production site, where both positive and challenging sides of the industry will be addressed in a professional and balanced way.
One of the great advantages of Kristiansand Zoo is their high number of visitors. They also reach many visitors who would rarely or never see aquaculture facilities. We therefore believe that it will be important for the industry to be able to present Norwegian salmon farming in such an arena.
