Graintec has a contract with Norway-based Salmo Terra to deliver RAS systems to their project in Øygarden outside Bergen.
The Danish company has operated feed systems for the fish farming industry for more than two decades, where it became known a year ago that they wanted to build their first RAS plant together with Salmo Terra.
The company’s general manager, Michael Mortensen, told SalmonBusiness that times are tough for those who want to invest in land-based farming at the moment.
“It’s pretty much the same problem everywhere right now for those who want to bet on land. There are a lot of people who are sitting on the fence waiting for someone to make it happen first,” he said.
“We know there are many investors there, but they don’t dare put the money in right now. It is clearly a tough time for land-based farming.”
Breaking barriers
Mortensen says he is looking towards the American market now to see if the land-based projects there manage to make it happen, as has been predicted.
“Take Atlantic Sapphire, for example, if they get it right, then I think there will be less skepticism.”
“It is quite clear that there is a lot of tension attached to them.”
Mortensen believes that now with the new resource rent tax it will be even harder to get funding started.
“There is an insane potential with land-based, but it is stupid that much of the development is now stopped because of politics.”
It was announced in April that Atlantic Sapphire lost $132.8 million in 2021.
He did not want to talk about where in the process the construction of the facility for Salmo Terra is, or whether they have reached the end of the investor process, but says that they still have a contract for the construction of the facility.
“We talk often, but I don’t want to elaborate on this any more,” he said, referring to the founders behind Salmo Terra.
Start-up
Salmo Terra wrote in a press release late in 2021 that they were scheduled to start construction in early 2022.
SalmonBusiness visited the site in Blomvågen in Øygarden last week, where the company has long planned to build the land-based facility on a disused whaling station, but there were no signs that there had been any work there.
A person connected to the area said that there had been talk of building for a long time, but they have not heard anything for a long time about the alleged start of construction.
SalmonBusiness has tried to get in touch with both Harald Schreiner Fiksdal and Kai André Stæger-Holst from Salmo Terra via e-mail, telephone and text message. So far, there has been no response.
