Mowi sells Atlantic Canada assets to Cooke for £119 million
Salmon farming giant writes off £74m in deal to focus on 'core farming geographies'
Mowi is to sell its salmon farming operations in Atlantic Canada to New Brunswick-headquartered Cooke Inc. for CAD 225 million (£119.4m / NOK 1.573 billion), the companies have announced.
“This is an exciting growth opportunity for our Atlantic Canada operations,” said Glenn Cooke, chief executive of family-owned Cooke. “We look forward to welcoming Mowi Canada East’s 250 employees to Cooke, and to working together to grow the sector and sustainably farm Atlantic salmon for customers in this region and beyond.”
Mowi has operations in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, including freshwater hatchery facilities, sea farming sites and two processing plants. Standing salmon biomass was 9,000 tonnes as of this week.
Writing off £74 million
Norway-headquartered Mowi said it was selling Mowi Canada East on a debt-free basis in order to further improve its farming portfolio and focus even more on core farming geographies.
The transaction will reduce Mowi’s volume guidance for 2026 from 605,000 gutted weight tonnes to 600,000 gwt. In connection with the transaction, Mowi will take a write-down of approximately CAD 140 million (£74m).
In Q3 last year, Mowi Canada East made an operating loss of €34.9m, after a very warm summer and autumn season created difficult environmental conditions including low oxygen levels.
High mortality levels
“These conditions resulted in high mortality at several sites, in addition to early harvesting related to management of the biological pressure with poor price achievement as a consequence,” Mowi said in its Q3 2025 report.
In the following quarter, Canada East made a €13m operating loss as results continued to be severely impacted by elevated sea temperatures.
For the full year, Mowi’s Canadian operations, which comprise Mowi Canada West in British Columbia and Mowi Canada East, made an operating loss of €39.8m (£34.3m / CAD 64.6m) and a financial loss of €151m. In 2024, Mowi made an operating profit of €3.4m in Canada, but a financial loss of €71.3m.
Three good years
Speaking to Fish Farm Expert in early September last year, Ben Hadfield, Mowi’s chief operations officer farming for Scotland, Ireland, the Faroes, and Canada East, said that in the three years prior to 2025 Mowi's team in Atlantic Canada had increased biomass in the sea from about 3,000 tonnes in the sea to over 25,000 at one point.
Mowi Canada East also won permission to increase capacity at its Stephenville hatchery from roughly 4.5 million smolts to 6.8 million per year in 2025.
But last year's sea conditions caused high mortality at some marine sites. Problems included a "thermocline inversion", when low-oxygen water comes up very suddenly from depth.
"It's quite sudden when it occurs and it causes mortality and really healthy fish very quickly," Hadfield said at the time.
Distance is a problem
Aeration and oxygenation can mitigate the problem if applied rapidly, but the large distances between sites in Mowi Canada East's estate makes it difficult to respond quickly with marine assets such as a wellboat.
"If we want to move assets from New Brunswick to Newfoundland, it's like moving them from France to Scotland in terms of distance," he explained in September. "The geography is challenging. When I was there last week, we went down to the sites in the south, it was 80 miles in a fast boat. Spending four and a half hours on big seas to get to where you’re going is a challenge."
Speaking to Fish Farming Expert just before Christmas, Hadfield said Canada East was stable, mortality was back to low levels "and it's really just about preventing the same occurrence in summer next year, so we're moving quickly to do that”.
Regulatory approvals
Cooke’s acquisition of Mowi’s Atlantic Canada assets remains subject to due diligence and customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. Closing is expected to take place sometime in the second half of 2026 and is subject to customary closing conditions.
“Cooke is committed to growing the sector and continuing to invest in the region’s rural coastal communities,” said the company. “Our immediate objectives will be to stabilise and reinvest in the operations through synergies with our existing farming operations across Atlantic Canada.”
According to information from Kontali Analyse published in Mowi's Salmon Farming Industry Handbook, Cooke produced 60,000 gwt of Atlantic salmon in North America (Canada and Maine in the US) in 2024, and Mowi produced 30,000 gwt. Grieg Seafood, which farmed in British Columbia and in Newfoundland, produced 23,000 gwt and Cermaq, which farmed in BC, produced 9,000 gwt. Cermaq has since bought Grieg's Canadian operations, along with its assets in Finnmark, Norway, for £738m.
Along with its operations in North America, Cooke farms salmon in Scotland (Orkney and Shetland), Chile, and Tasmania, barramundi in northern Australia's Northern Territory, and seabass, sea bream and meagre in the Mediterranean. In March, it agreed a deal to take control of Mediterranean seabass and sea bream farmer Avramar Greece, which has an estimated production capacity of 47,000 tonnes.
