Roger Hofseth
CEO Hofseth International
Aquaculture has a critical role in helping end world hunger and malnutrition. Therefore, we aim to produce healthy, sustainable, and high-quality seafood that is accessible for many to enjoy.
Fish welfare is our top priority. With strategically placed new facilities and effective monitoring, we have achieved excellent results.
We process the fish as close to the sources as possible to ensure value creation in the local communities and to provide the freshest raw material in our products.
We work every day to ensure that our processing facilities produce safe food for consumers all over the world, and we uphold the highest quality standards.
In our whole value chain, from farming to freight of the finished product, we focus on reducing the environmental impact.
Located in a fjord surrounded by towering mountains and majestic waterfalls, we not only have abundant access to pristine water but also renewable energy from locally produced hydroelectric power. We have renewable electricity available at all our facilities across the entire value chain. At one of our aquaculture sites where grid power isn’t available, we harness solar energy using floating solarfarms built on recycled cages provided by the local company Inseanergy.
Our farmed salmon can be traced back to wild salmon populations in Norway, and we see it as our duty to preserve these wild salmon. We work on several fronts to minimize our impact. First and foremost, we strive to ensure zero escapes and minimal sea lice inour existing facilities in Storfjorden.
We plan to grow using closed pens, both through our investment in closed sea facilities and land-based aquaculture, project called Raudbergvika. We collaborate closely with both the national organization Norske Lakseelver and local associations through Lakseelvene på Sunnmøre. We have contributed significantly and continue to support initiatives and knowledge that can improve the situation for salmon and trout in our area.
The image shows researcher Marius Kampebastad from the NORCE research institute conducting spawning surveys in Tafjordelva to assess the status of wild salmon in the Storfjorden area.
To have enough nutrition for the growing world population, it is essential to utilize as much as possible of the food production for human consumption. We strive to utilize as much of the fish as possible in our products, but offcuts like the head, backbone, skin and tail are normally considered waste. Through our local innovative biotech company, Hofseth Biocare, we are able to transform the offcuts into high-value nutraceutical ingredients for human consumption.
We are constantly looking for new packaging methods and new types of materials that secure the high quality of our products and at the same time reduce our environmental footprint. Through cooperation with suppliers, and mapping of our value chain we have identified opportunities to implement sustainable solutions at every stage. EPS waste from raw material arriving at our processing facilities is compressed and recycled into building materials. On our fresh fish deliveries to European customers we have transitioned from using EPS packaging, into the sole use of 100% recyclable paper packaging solutions, significantly reducing our CO2 footprint. Salmon off-cuts are transported using reusable containers to minimize waste. Our goal is to make all plastic packaging fully recyclable or reusable by 2026.
Throughout our value chain, we strive to minimize our environmental footprint. We've significantly reduced emissions in fish transport from our aquaculture sites to processing facilities by half with the introduction of the processing vessel Taumar, compared to traditional well-boats. We are shifting our sales from fresh to frozen and re-freshed products transported via low-emission container ships. We are currently working on a project aimed at reducing air freight, called IceFresh. With our patented hyper-rapid defrosting solution, IceFresh technology, we can reduce CO2 emissions, lower transport costs, extend shelflife, ensure flexible supply, and reduce food waste.
We believe that sustainable aquaculture growth will come in submersible cages and closed systems. As we are committed to be a part of the solution, we allocate vast resources to the development of more sustainable technologies.
As an ASC certified farmer, we follow a set standard for responsible aquaculture in order to minimise the environmental and social impacts of our activities.
The wild salmon, ancestor of the Atlantic Salmon, lives in the rivers surrounding our fjord and we are taking every measure to preserve the population.
Unlike many other farming countries, farmers in Norway do not use antibiotics in order to help prevent antibiotic resistance. Instead, Norwegian farmers use extensive preventative measures to keep the fish healthy.
Our goal is to produce fish in a carbon-neutral way, and we are currently transitioning our facilities to utilize renewable power from solar and hydrogen.
We have a close cooperation with world-leading feed provider Cargill, and the raw material have strict specifications regarding origin and nutritional content.
We have continous monitoring of the fish and the environment, ensuring low levels of disease and lice, and minimal frequency of fish handling.
The safety of our workers is of utmost importance, and we have strict HMS regulations ensuring the health and wellbeing of our employees.
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