The second coming of cod?
Namdal Torsk has stocked 130,000 cod into cages over the last month and believes that, thanks to the quality of juveniles available, a renaissance in Norway’s cod farming industry is possible.
The company stocked around 85,000 cod with an average weight of 230 to 280 grams, on July 11th.
“The fish came with the wellboat 'Triton', and the rest of the fish came a week later with wellboat "Ro Chief". The last supplied fish had an average weight of 328 grams, which brought the total to 130,000 fish with an average weight of around 280 grams,” Kåre Jarle Devik, NAmdal’s CEO, told kyst.no.
Devik says that the fish looked very good, with no visible deformations.
“We have not had any signs of illness since stocking, and our fish health professionals Per Anton Sæter from Marin Helse says the fish are of good quality and are eating very well”.
He does admit that the fish vary somewhat in size, but is not overly concerned by this.
“We think they were not been sorted from the supplier prior to delivery and we cannot see any runts, which is good,” he explained.
Low mortality and good growth
Mortality has also been low and the fish have already grown to an average weight of about 450-500 grams.
“If we continue the current growth rate the first fish should be ready for harvesting in early autumn next year,” Devik says.
“If this is the new standard for Norwegian farmed cod I think we shall succeed in re-starting the cod farming industry,” he adds.
According to Devik, the fish are very social and rise to the surface during feeding.
“We'll need to wait and see when spring comes, but so far it looks very good, and we are now planning to put out more fish in the sea,” he concludes.
Namdal Torsk was registered on March 8th 2016 and is 100 percent owned by Namdal Settefisk.
