Firda Seafood Group and Blom Group, the majority owner of Blom Fiskeoppdrett, have entered into a cooperation agreement.

The collaboration will include a total of 20 commercial licenses, two display licenses and two R&D licenses, through which the two companies want to facilitate an industrial investment with a strong cost focus, efficient operations, better and more comprehensive zoning and strengthened efforts relating to fish health across western Norway, where the two companies operate.

"The goal of the collaboration is that production volumes will go up, and production costs will go down," said Blom Group Chairman Jakob Blom. "We will achieve this best by extracting synergies in production, increasing flexibility and developing good and efficient locations."

He adds that a change in the locality structure in Western Norway will be necessary to enable this, and this is "the right strategic move" for the Blom Group.

Optimal site structure

Firda Seafood owner Ola Branas says "the agreement will make it possible to extract a number of synergies in different parts of the two companies."

"The two companies' fish farms are located together in a limited geographical area, which lays the foundation for an optimal locality structure with efficient production. We look forward to embarking on this work, and hope to be able to have a good dialogue with the relevant sector authorities with a view to an optimal area and locality structure, so that we can take even greater care of the relationship with fish welfare and fish health," he said.

Blom and Firda said no further comments would be given at this time.

In April last year, salmon and trout farmer Firda signed a contract with seafood software developer Maritech for digital sales and traceability tools integrated with packing.

Firda also expanded its packaging company, Martin E. Birknes in Byrknesoy, Norway, in a bid to take a share of larger Asian markets.

The facility, which includes filleting, freezing and warehouse operations, will have the capacity to receive 250 metric tons of trout per day, while the filleting facility will initially produce 50 metric tons of finished fillets per day.

Furthermore, the company plans to build a 6,000-metric-ton capacity hatchery to grow its salmon up to one kilo on land before releasing into sea cages.

Coast Seafood, one of Norway's largest seafood exporters, is currently taking legal action against salmon and trout farming company Blom Fiskeoppdrett, which it partly owns, despite withdrawing the initial case it filed against the firm.

The seafood exporter started a new case, asking for compensation and continued delivery of fish.

Maaloy-based Coast reached an agreement in 2014 with Blom to sell all of the fish the farmer produced. That same year, Coast took an equity stake in the company, which has since grown to a nearly 34 percent share.

Blom stopped supplying Coast with its fish in October as a result of a dispute, a move that Coast says is a violation of their agreement.