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Mowi ASA (), known as Marine Harvest ASA until 2019 and as Pan Fish until 2007, is a Norwegian seafood company with operations in a number of countries around the world. The company's primary interest is fish farming, primarily salmon, the operations of which are focused on Norway, Scotland, Canada, the Faroe Islands, Ireland and Chile. The group has a share of 25 to 30% of the global salmon and trout market, making it the world's largest company in the sector. Mowi also owns a 'value added processing' unit, which prepares and distributes a range of seafood products, and a number of smaller divisions.
The company assumed its current form as a result of massive expansion in 2006, when Pan Fish ASA conducted an effective three-way merger with Marine Harvest N.V. and Fjord Seafood. The group is headquartered in Bergen and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange where it is a constituent of the benchmark OBX Index..
For 2023, the company reported revenue of €5.51bn (up 11% from 2022), net profit of €444.4M (down 43% from 2022) and a profit margin of 8.1% (down from 16% in 2022).
Nutreco retained the name Marine Harvest for the unit's fish farming operations, and established interests in the emerging farmed cod, halibut, yellowtail and barramundi markets. In May 2005, Nutreco merged its fish-farming operations with the salmon, trout, halibut, tilapia, cod, sturgeon and caviar businesses of Stolt-Nielsen, creating a new stand-alone company, again named Marine Harvest. Nutreco held a 75% stake in the joint venture, with Stolt taking the remainder.
As with Pan Fish, poor market conditions saw Fjord's stock price worsen dramatically in 2001, and with it the ability to pay off its debts. The company's future was only secured thanks to a NOK 700 million bail out from major that September. Attempts to grow the company through merger and acquisitions were also frustrated—a planned merger with the aquaculture businesses of Domstein (then the biggest shareholder of Fjord) and state-controlled Cermaq was aborted in June 2002 after opposition from parties including ContiGroup and Seaboard, who controlled over 20% of shares between them. Nevertheless, Fjord stabilised its financial position through restructuring and cost-cutting measures.
Fredriksen's efforts to effect change finally bore fruit in March 2006, as Geveran Trading succeeded in purchasing Marine Harvest from its joint owners for €881 million, before immediately turning ownership over to Pan Fish. Geveran also sold its stake in Fjord Seafood to Pan Fish simultaneously. With its remaining shares purchased by Pan Fish, Fjord Seafood de-listed from the Oslo Stock Exchange on 6 July 2006. With regulatory hurdles in the United Kingdom and France cleared, the Marine Harvest group was brought under the control of Pan Fish by the end of 2006. To allow the merger to go ahead, the sale of the former Pan Fish Scotland division was agreed with the regulatory authorities. After an initial deal to sell the unit to Norskott Havbruk, owners of rival company Scottish Sea Farms, was called off in July 2007, Pan Fish Scotland was spun off into a separate publicly traded entity, Lighthouse Caledonia, that November.
Geveran Trading held a 28% stake in the company upon completion of the merger, a shareholding which has since increased to almost 30% as of March 2009.
In November 2019, Mowi appointed Ivan Vindheim as its new CEO, replacing Aarskog.
In 2023, the company plans to cut 435 jobs, reducing headcount by 12% as part of a cost-cutting programme that began in 2018. It also plans to optimise its business by automating processes and renegotiating agreements with suppliers. These measures are forecast to save the company 25 million euros ($26.6 million), while insisting no jobs will be lost in the process.
used are Delifish (smoked fish from Chile), Ducktrap (smoked, in the United States), Clare Island Organic Salmon (from Ireland), Donegal Silver Salmon (from Ireland), Kendall Brook (salmon), Kritsen (smoked, in France), La Couronne (smoked, in Belgium), Pieters (distribution), Sterling White Halibut (from Norway), Xalar (salmon oil from Norway).
In Scotland, Mowi operates 25 sea farms, plus three hatcheries (in Lochailort, Finfish and Inchmore), four freshwater loch sites, a harvest station in Mallaig and a processing plant in Fort William. Head office is in Rosyth and all produce is atlantic salmon. There is also a processing plant located in Rosyth.
In the Faroe Islands, Marine Harvest operates fresh water sites in Hellur, and seawater sites in Oyndarfjørður, Haldarsvík, Hósvík and Kollafjørður. Produce is Atlantic salmon.
In Ireland, Mowi operates one broodstock plant, two hatcheries, three fresh water sites, twelve seawater sites, three processing plants, all but four seawater sites in County Donegal, the latter being in County Mayo. Output is Atlantic salmon. Mowi also runs a salmon farm in Castletownbere Mowi picks up net cleaning robot and Inishfarnard.
In British Columbia, Canada, Mowi operates two processing plants, seven hatcheries and 37 seawater sites near five towns in British Columbia: Campbell River, Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Quatsino and Klemtu. Produce is atlantic salmon.
In Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, Mowi purchased one hatchery and two fishing licenses in New Brunswick and a processing plant along with seven fishing licenses in Newfoundland in February 2017.
In the United States, one processing plant is located in Maine, Another plant in Arlington (Texas) with a plant and sales offices in Miami. In Asia, sales offices are located in Singapore; Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan; Taipei, Taiwan, and Busan, South Korea.
Mowi's operations have been severely affected in the south of Chile, where millions of fish have died by the disease infectious salmon anemia. The rapid propagation of the virus has motivated the enterprise to sell some of its facilities, firing more than a thousand employees, with the aim of moving its installations further south to the Aisén Region. Parasitism, viral and fungal infections are all disseminated when the fish are stressed and the centres are too close together, and a spokesman for Marine Harvest recognized that his company was using too many in Chile and that fish pens were too close, contributing to the dissemination of the ISA virus. Norwegian scientist Are Nylund has suggested that Marine Harvest introduced the ISA virus to the region by importing infected eggs from Norway.
In January 2017 Private Eye reported that Mowi had been depositing large quantities of the insecticide azamethiphos into Scottish waters to control Sea louse in salmon. The Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture called for the drug to be banned, citing risks to other species. Mowi had been responsible for the majority of an estimated 400 kg of the insecticide placed into Scottish waters in 2016.
In April 2019 Irish minister for marine Michael Creed discontinued a fish farm licence held by Mowi in County Kerry for overstocking. Irish Examiner - Fish farm license discontinued after probe
On February 18, 2020 Mowi Scotland assistant manager Clive Hendry was crushed between workboat Beinn Na Caillich and a large barge while attempting to cross between them. He was seriously injured; a colleague grabbed his oilskin and lifejacket but he slipped out of them into the water where he drowned. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch criticised Mowi's safety processes, and recommended they employ marine experts to advise their senior management, and implement a safety management system that complied with the International Safety Management Code.
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