Historically high activity.
Norwegian salmon processing plants and exporters have hardly ever had more to do. Last week, 37,199 tonnes of salmon were exported, converted to round weight. Only once has Norway exported more salmon, in week 50 last year.
It wasn’t much more. At that time, 37,372 tonnes of salmon were sent out of the country, according to export statistics from Norway’s Seafood Council.
After the salmon price fell brutally from the peak in early summer, export volumes have picked up again. Nothing stimulates demand like lower selling prices.
In the past four weeks alone, Norway has exported 140,228 tonnes of salmon. In comparison, Canada, which is the world’s fourth largest salmon farmer, harvested 149,000 tonnes in the whole of 2021.
By far the largest buyer of Norwegian salmon in the last week was the processing powerhouse Poland. The Poles bought in 5,615 tonnes of fresh salmon.
At the same time that salmon exports have picked up, the inventory in the sea has been reduced. SalmonBusiness’s sister site iLaks reported on Thursday that the standing salmon biomass in Norway at the end of August was 844,685 tonnes, down from 850,919 tonnes in the same month last year, corresponding to a decrease of 0.7 per cent.
