Mowi

This report, now in its fourth edition, assesses 60 of the largest listed global meat, dairy and aquaculture companies on ten environmental, social and governance themes aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Overall, Mowi scored 81 out of 100 and was rated ‘Industry Best’ against many of the criteria aligned to the SDGs including greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and biodiversity, use of antibiotics, animal welfare, working conditions, food safety and governance.

Speaking about Mowi’s ranking on the Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index, CEO Ivan Vindheim said: “This shows again that Mowi is at the forefront of sustainable food production. I am proud and humbled to lead a company and an organisation that is a recognised leader in sustainable food production. Importantly, the Index highlights that aquaculture and salmon farming is part of the solution toward shifting to a green economy.”

Chief Sustainability and Technology Officer, Catarina Martins, added: “I am delighted to see Mowi’s sustainability strategy and achievements being recognised in this global rating. For three years in a row now, Mowi is considered the most sustainable animal protein producer in the world. This achievement is the result of hard work and passion for what we do every day: producing food that is good for people and good for the planet!”

The 2021 report found that aquaculture companies, primarily salmon companies, continue to perform better than animal protein producers on all risk factors, especially deforestation and biodiversity and antibiotics. On average, aquaculture also shows the most improvement year on year, demonstrating the sector’s focus on managing its sustainability risks versus its land-based peers. Companies headquartered in Europe are paying more attention to deforestation and antibiotic risks, making them the strongest performing region. In fact, Mowi is joined in the top five ranked companies by fellow aquaculture companies Grieg Seafood ASA and Lerøy Seafood Group ASA, both headquartered in Norway, who are ranked 2nd and 4th respectively.

The Index is designed to provide financial institutions with best-in-class data, analytics and trends on the protein sector to integrate into their investment decisions and engagement strategies and is positively shaping trends in the $1.6 trillion global protein market, by shedding light on where corporate policy or disclosure is behind the curve. It has become the go-to resource for investors to assess how well key suppliers in the food chain are managing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks:

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Deforestation & biodiversity
• Water use & scarcity
• Waste & pollution
• Antibiotics
• Working conditions
• Animal welfare
• Food safety
• Governance
• Sustainable proteins

Demand for salmon continued to recover from Covid-19 lockdown measures during the third quarter as foodservice activity improved further and retail demand remained at strong levels. This led to a significant rebound in salmon prices compared with last year and increased earnings by 64% year-over-year.

“It’s positive to see that the salmon market continues on the road to full recovery. The estimated value of salmon consumed globally in the third quarter increased by more than 30% compared with last year and reached a new record-high level for a quarter. This is particularly impressive given that not all markets have yet fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mowi CEO Ivan Vindheim said.

Mowi Consumer Products delivered another strong set of results with the best ever earnings in a third quarter.

“This demonstrates strong retail demand in the market and also our ability to serve new and existing customers across geographies. Mowi Consumer Products has been able to benefit from and capitalise on the shift in demand towards elaborated products,” Vindheim said.

Total harvest volume in the quarter of 117 115 tonnes gutted weight (125 773 tonnes) was above guidance of 110 000 tonnes mainly due to good growth conditions in Norway. Further to this, harvest guidance for 2021 is increased to 455 000 tonnes, equivalent to 15 000 tonnes volume growth year-over-year. Next year, Mowi expects to harvest 460 000 tonnes.

“Mowi has a clear strategy to grow and Mowi Farming’s harvest capacity is well in excess of 500 000 tonnes. It’s therefore encouraging to see that we are heading towards another record year for Farming volumes in 2021,” Vindheim said.

Mowi’s Board has decided to pay a quarterly dividend of NOK 1.40 per share, consisting of NOK 0.93 per share in ordinary dividend and an extraordinary dividend of NOK 0.47 per share supported by a strong financial position and a favourable outlook.

Last week, the Blue Food Assessment (BFA) was released. The BFA is a collaboration between the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stanford University and EAT, bringing together more than 100 scientists from 25 institutions to publish a series of scientific reviews that can help influence policy makers.

The assessment shows how blue foods, such as salmon, and the waters in which they grow will have an essential role to play in the shift towards healthy, equitable and sustainable food systems. In fact, the assessment shows farmed salmon is preferrable to chicken for most environmental metrics, including freshwater use and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as on nutrient profile.

The assessment found that blue foods on average have much greater nutritional benefits than terrestrial animal foods, and many also have a smaller environmental footprint.

The assessment states: “15-million-tonne increased supply of aquatic animal-source food over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030 can prevent approximately 166 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake.”

Manuel Barange of FAO said: “Aquatic foods provide unique micronutrients that can help secure healthy diets. It’s about time we harness aquatic food to their full capacity to deliver ecological, economic and nutritional benefits around the world.”

Among the environmental benefits found in the assessment, it states: “Among farmed finfish and crustaceans, silver and bighead carps have the lowest greenhouse gas, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, but highest water use, while farmed salmon and trout use the least land and water.”

It was found that aquaculture is less exposed to climate risks than fisheries.

The assessment also found that global blue food demand is expected to approximately double by 2050, something that is likely to have widespread environmental and social implications. The report says: “We project a near doubling of global fish demand by mid-century assuming continued growth in aquaculture production and constant real prices for fish.”

Catarina Martins, Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer, said: “The BFA is a remarkable scientific proof of the value our industry has for humanity. Producing food from the ocean is both good for the planet, because of lower environmental impact compared to alternative land animal proteins, and good for people because of its unique nutritional profile. Having this value recognised by leading scientists is fantastic.”

The fourth industrial revolution is upon us. The ongoing trend of using smart technology to automate production and industrial practices offers significant opportunities for Mowi. To leverage these opportunities, we have developed our own Mowi 4.0 strategy to digitalise and automate our value chain from roe to plate.

Mowi 4.0 is our digital strategy set to revolutionise our business and our journey is well underway with technologies such as advanced camera and sensor technology, the Internet of Things (IoT), image recognition, machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, big data and analytics already introduced.

These technologies will have a significant impact on how we operate throughout our integrated value chain – from roe to plate, through:

• Smart Farming
• Smart Operations
• Customer Interaction

Significant progress has been made in Smart Farming and Smart Operations in particular and it is our goal to implement Smart Farming in all operations in Norway by 2025.

The ongoing implementation of Smart Farming technologies in Mowi Farming is expected to have a positive impact not only on productivity and costs, but also on fish welfare and sustainability. Farming Norway leads the way within “Mowi 4.0 Smart Farming” and by 2025 expects to have completed the roll-out of Smart Farming technologies in its largest farming unit.

By means of advanced imaging technology and intelligent sensors, Mowi will perform real-time monitoring of biomass, digital lice counting, autonomous feeding and tracking of fish welfare.

Remote operation centres will leverage on these technological advances. A wealth of data combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence will enable Mowi to grow fish much more efficiently than today, and in an even more sustainable way. By constantly tracking fish behaviour and fish health, Mowi can be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to acting on biological issues.

Henrik Trengereid is the project manager overseeing the roll out of the sensing and analysis platform to multiple sites in Norway. He comments on the progress:

“With this project Mowi is living up to our vision of Leading the Blue Revolution. We have installed the technology at many sites across the Norwegian coast and are in the process of validating and documenting the anticipated value it will have both for us as farmers and for the fish in our care.”

The organisation strongly believes Industry 4.0 technologies will offer much clearer scale advantages in the seawater phase than what is seen today.

In Mowi’s downstream operations digitalisation and automation also offer significant opportunities in its more than 30 factories all across the world. Fish processing is in many ways still very labour-intensive and in many cases improvements can be made simply by automation of manual work. However, the availability of advanced scanning technology also opens up for much more efficient production and more sophisticated product differentiation than seen today.

Odd Medhus, Group Manager Product Quality and Processing, explains:

“It’s not just about a photograph to understand the appearance of the fillet, it’s about the diagnostic potential of the technology. This has never been done before in the food industry and it will mean that we can guarantee the quality of our products. This has never been done before in the food industry and it will mean that we can guarantee the quality of our products.”

The launch of the MOWI brand shows that Mowi is delivering value-added products directly to the consumer. One way of connecting with the consumer is to provide transparent and relevant information about the product they are buying. This is done by using QR codes on the product, which pulls up well-presented information about the origin of the fish and other details about its journey from the hatchery to the grocery store.

Similarly, Mowi is in an early stage of sharing important product information using blockchain with strategic customers, such as major European supermarket chains. Batch information and various project details are shared on the customer’s own platforms. In the future this can be expanded to include things like transportation information, temperature measurements from logistics companies etc. ensuring that the necessary level of quality is maintained in each step of the project throughout the value chain.

E-commerce has been growing consistently during the past decade. This is also true for groceries, either through e-commerce platforms of traditional brick-and-mortar players or through dedicated e-commerce grocery shops like Amazon Fresh. Due to Covid-19 impacts, e-commerce growth has been massively accelerated during 2020.

Ola Brattvoll, COO Sales and Marketing, says:

“The MOWI brand has already been selling well in e-commerce in 2020. Out of or 3 top customers, 2 of them are e-commerce. As of next year, we want to expand further in this channel with existing and new customers.”

At Mowi, we work with the ocean to produce nutritious, delicious and supreme-quality seafood. We fulfill one fifth of global demand for farm-raised Atlantic salmon and are constantly driven by innovation and the desire to achieve the highest standards of sustainability.

At Mowi, we care for every aspect of our salmon. We are the only salmon producer with full internal control of our own genetics, feed, farming operations, harvesting, processing, logistics, sales and marketing.

Since the Mowi adventure started in 1964 the company has grown and changed in many ways. From its humble beginnings, when a few pioneers started farming fish in their back yards, through to the present day, Mowi has become a global leader in its field. As the company has grown, both organically and as a result of mergers and acquisitions, Mowi has maintained its leading position at the forefront of the aquaculture industry.