Thursday, CEO of Hav Line, Carl-Erik Arnesen, opened Hav Line Processing in Hirtshals, the world’s largest packing facility for salmon.
“Why should salmon be slaughtered on land when it grows up in the sea? Now we have the world’s largest harvesting vessel and the world’s largest salmon packing facility, located here in Hirtshals. “The Hav Line method” is a fact,” said Arnesen to about a hundred listeners in his opening speech.
“This revolutionary method that reduces the handling of the fish and improves the fish welfare, as well as getting trucks away from the roads is finally in place. We also reduce the amount of CO2 emitted per kilogram of fish, which is more important now than ever before,” he added.
«Norwegian Gannet» was missing
There was only one thing that was not in place during the opening ceremony, and it was the harvesting vessel itself. The attendants had to settle for a model of «Norwegian Gannet», which was on display at the quay.
“We should, of course, have had the harvesting vessel here, but it is, after all, more important to help colleagues in the north than to show off the boat. «Norwegian Gannet» was originally planned to be here today and unloaded fish for packing for you to see how it works,” said Arnesen to SalmonBusiness.
The harvesting vessel «Norwegian Gannet» is for the time being put in place to save values from the algae bloom in Northern Norway.
“We find it a little sad that we cannot show everything, but the algae bloom in Northern Norway is a dramatic situation. We found that it was best to turn around and drive the boat north. «Norwegian Gannet» is the only boat in the world that can do the job, where we slaughter the salmon straight out of the cages, and in that way salvage the fish and great values,” said Arnesen.
Almost 8,000 tonnes
Although the official opening took place on Thursday, Hav Line Processing has already packed nearly 8,000 tonnes of salmon through the terminal. Arnesen is very pleased, although he emphasizes that they are still in a run-in phase.
“It takes time with such large plants, but I am very pleased so far. This is great. If you go back to January of last year, there was only one large area here, so very much has been achieved in a short amount of time,” said Arnesen.
He said that «Norwegian Gannet» has mostly loaded 600 tonnes of salmon on a trip from the west coast of Norway, and down to Hirtshals. In one week, it can do two trips from the west coast and down to the packing facility.
