Milestone for Rosyth

The news will come as a relief to Bertil Buysse, who replaced Andy Stapley as Managing Director of Marine Harvest Consumer Products in April and was tasked with ensuring the company broke even by Q3. 

Stapley stepped down having overseen losses of €7.7 million in the first quarter of the year, while this had fallen to €4 million in Q2.

Commenting on the Q3 results, the board of MH reflected: “The quarterly break-even results of the Rosyth plant in Scotland were comforting and show that the new management team has executed well on the improvement plan.”

The Q3 report adds: “This is a significant improvement from the previous quarter, as well as the third quarter of 2015, when the results were impacted by preparation costs and start-up costs.”

Consumer Products: overview

Overall the Group’s Consumer Products division sold 29,621 tonnes of seafood - an increase of 18% compared to the third quarter of 2015, generated by upturns in both Fresh and Chilled sales.

Operational EBIT was EUR 2.2 million (EUR 4.6 million) at a margin of 0.7% (1.8%) and was hit by a “significant increase in raw material prices”.

The firm’s French Fresh operations saw EBIT increase compared to the third quarter of 2015 as a result of improved sales prices and increased volumes; while fresh operations in Benelux were slightly below the comparable quarter of 2015.

Chilled operations were hit by record-high raw material prices, despite operational improvements as well as increased sales prices.

The firm is now due to increase its focus on marketing, according to CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog, who said: “We will continue to ramp-up marketing efforts in important markets such as the US where we are about to open up a new processing plant in Dallas.”