Good growth reported at world's largest on-land trout facility

Hima Seafoods' fish farming facility is located in Rjukan, in Telemark, southern Norway, and has a gross area of 30,000 square metres.

Totalbetong was responsible for the construction of the building, while Eyvi has overseen the entire technical process delivery.

Hima investment director Magnus Torp told LandbasedAQ in a brief comment that the company is still working on the construction of the last part of the facility which includes growth departments, purge facilities, and the slaughterhouse.

"The operation is going very well, there is good growth and very low mortality," said Torp.

Construction work started on August 1, 2022, and the first major milestone was reached on January 5, 2024, when the facility received its first ova.

"The next major milestone for us will be in July 2025 when we will harvest the fish," said Torp.

Sludge technology

The company has focused on local fresh water being cleaned and reused. Hima Seafood, in collaboration with supplier Sterner, has built its own sludge facility, where it collect all the sludge, extract the water through drying, which yields up to 85% dry matter, and sanitise it. 

The trout facility is as large underground as it is above. When complete, the building will be 320 metres long, with a ground floor area of about 27,000 square metres across two levels.

"There is a huge infrastructure below and above ground. The fish will move seamlessly from tank to tank and department to department, below and above ground. The tanks are very small in the first departments, and increase as the fish grow," Sten Falkum, chief executive of Hima Seafood, has previously stated. 

£178bn cost

The facility will cost close to NOK 2.5 billion (£178.2 million at today's exchange rate), and Falkum says Hima has secured solid investors. The land-based aquaculture company also has big plans outside Norway, where it is planning large facilities in North Carolina in the United States, and Canada.

"Together with Eyvi, we at Hima Seafood have 30 people at work in the USA every day. It is a very solid investment that we are making in the USA now, and we are under way," Falkum told LandbasedAQ earlier this year. 

The land-based farms will be much larger than the plant being built in Rjukan.

"We envisage six large facilities in the first instance. The American model will produce around 23,000 tonnes of head on gutted trout, compared to the plant at Rjukan which has around 9,000 HOG."

His ambition is to make the US self-sufficient in rainbow trout with these facilities.

Eyvi and Hima Seafood have been working on the preliminary design of the facilities, and have set up offices in the States. The plan is for start-up to be sometime during 2025.