Mowi Scotland will harvest 40,000 tonnes in first half of this year
Mowi Scotland expects to harvest more than 40,000 gutted weight tonnes of salmon in the first half of this year, parent company Mowi ASA says in its Q1 2025 report today.
“To put this into perspective, this is higher than the annual harvest volume in 2018,” Mowi writes, although it should also be said that Mowi Scotland had reduced production that year to tackle biological problems.
Mowi Scotland's harvest volume in Q1 increased to 17,656 gwt from 14,205 gwt in Q1 2024, and cost was reduced. One reason was that Mowi Scotland – which is guiding for a full-year volume of 70,000 gwt - harvested from some of its best-performing sites in the first quarter. Feeding performance was good, and feed conversion ratio improved from Q1 2024.
Mowi Scotland says the Scottish subsidiary’s post-smolt operations in Loch Etive – a sea loch with relatively low salinity - are developing as planned. The four-site system is being fallowed twice per year, which has resulted in biological improvements.
7 million post-smolts
“Going forward we expect Loch Etive to have an annual output of post-smolt in the range of 7 million,” says Mowi, which acquired the Loch Etive sites and some others when it bought trout producer Dawnfresh Farming in early 2023.
Construction of Mowi’s land-based broodstock facility at Ardessie in Wester Ross is progressing and operations are expected to commence in Q3 2025.
“Both the post-smolt project and the broodstock facility are important steps to further improve our biological and financial performance. Post-smolt partially mitigates summer water quality challenges and eggs of the Mowi strain correlate strongly with higher robustness and lower mortality in Scottish marine conditions,” writes Mowi.
Loch Awe
Mowi Scotland has also received all relevant permissions to convert two former Dawnfresh sites at Loch Awe from trout to salmon production. Loch Awe, which has undertaken an extended fallow period, is being equipped with higher specification farming equipment and will be stocked in May 2025.
The company has sold the remaining Dawnfresh assets that can’t be easily converted to salmon production to a new company, SeaQureFarming Ltd, owned by Gael Force Group chief Stewart Graham.
Mowi Scotland made an operating profit of €31.5 million (£26.5m) in Q1, compared to €31.1m made in the same period last year.
The larger harvest volume and lower cost were offset by lower market prices, even though Mowi Scotland’s achieved price was 114% of the reference price due to improved harvest weights, sale of differentiated products and positive contribution from contracts.
Consequently, operational EBIT per kilo dropped from €2.19/kg in Q1 2024 to €1.78/kg in Q1 2025.
