For the past year or so, land-based salmon farming has been the purview of the bold, innovative and, yes, foolhardy.

With four land-based salmon farming companies listing on the Euronext in the past six months alone and projects seemingly announced weekly -- by our count there are now more than 75 proposed projects -- it was only a matter of time before major salmon farming companies jumped in, or at the very least signaled they would.

That happened in a big way this week, with the CEO of the world's largest salmon farming company, Mowi, telling IntraFish the company was reconsidering it, and just days later, Leroy Seafood announcing in its earnings that it will be pursuing a project as well.

Though salmon farmers Grieg Seafood and Kvaroy Fiskeoppdrett have partnered on projects, Mowi and Leroy are in another league.

If indeed the two giants were to pursue it in any major way, it would completely change the landscape, and make the current projects seem "cute" by comparison. Or, perhaps, make them likely acquisition targets (though not at the current valuations).

"Everything we see that can be profitable, we will do," Vindheim told my colleague Anders Furuset last week, showing that the company's entrance into the segment is simply a matter of math.

Though ex-Mowi CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog dubbed land-based salmon farming as akin to farming pigs in the ocean in 2016, the technology has improved and more importantly, investors looking for exposure in the aquaculture space have latched on to the idea like a sea louse.

That's in part because the investment community likes ground-floor opportunities -- they're ultimately glorified gamblers -- an in no small part because land-based salmon farming ticks the environmental and social governance (ESG) boxes that will increasingly be "must haves" for any agriculture exposure.

The publicly listed land-based salmon farming industry is now worth over $2 billion (€1.7 billion), the majority of that being first-mover Atlantic Sapphire.

That's a lot of money. But it's peanuts for Leroy and Mowi, who as of Feb. 19 are worth $5 billion (€4 billion) and $12 billion (€10 billion), respectively. Oh, they also produce and process more than a few trucks of fish. And they make a lot of money doing that (COVID times being an exception).

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Still, you can't ignore an opportunity, no matter how big you are, and public companies can't ignore investors.

Leroy shares were up 10 percent Friday (they also beat Q4 expectations), and Mowi shares are up 5 percent since Vindheim made his comments. Correlation is not causation, but still -- investors were at the very least not bothered by the potential expansion.

Investors in public land-based startups, meanwhile, seemed unsure how to react to what could be a threat to their survival. Shares were already correcting over the past month, with all but Atlantic sapphire falling. Most listed companies, including Salmon Evolution, Andfjord and Nordic Aqua Partners, have fallen by double digits. Per Grieg-backed Proximar is already down 6 percent since its stock debut just a few weeks ago.

So will Leroy and Mowi actually go big in land-based salmon? My guess is not anytime soon. But their comments are a warning shot to all the upstarts: we could if we wanted to.

Comments? Email: drew.cherry@intrafish.com

Aquaculture

Mowi and Leroy just upended land-based salmon farming