Bakkafrost reported its second quarter 2025 results, noting a challenging market environment due to increased global salmon supply and lower prices. The company’s CEO Regin Jacobsen stated:
“We are not satisfied with the financial results in this quarter. A significant increase in global salmon supply has led to low salmon prices, impacting our earnings.
At the same time, we are very pleased with the achieved cost reduction in the Faroes, highlighted by a 12% reduction in our farming costs, and we continue to prioritize cost discipline also going forward.
In the Faroe Islands, biological performance reached the highest level ever recorded for the company, which we view as a very strong achievement. The farming segment delivered exceptionally strong biological performance in the quarter, with robust growth and survival rates at the best level seen in more than a decade. Feeding activity reached all-time highs, while mortality was reduced by 52% compared to the same quarter last year. In the Faroese freshwater operation, performance has stepped up to a new level – delivering smolt of unprecedented quality and robustness, building a strong foundation for our future farming. This is clearly evidenced by post-transfer survivability at record-high levels.
In Scotland, we are not pleased with the performance in the freshwater operation, where we unfortunately faced significant mortalities due to diseases. To address this, we are integrating the Scottish freshwater operations under the Faroese organisation, led by the Group Freshwater Director, and have strengthened the site management at Applecross with experienced staff from the Faroe Islands. While freshwater remains a challenge, the Scottish marine operations have shown good development overall, although some one-off events led to higher mortality.
Despite the pressure from lower prices, the strong biological performance in both the Faroes and Scotland has supported volume growth. We are therefore increasing our harvest guidance for the year in both regions by a total of 7%. Our strategic priorities remain unchanged – to continue building biological resilience, strengthen operational performance across regions, and secure long-term value creation.”
The company saw improvements in its Faroese operations with notable reductions in farming costs and improved survival rates among fish stocks. In contrast, Bakkafrost’s Scottish freshwater sites experienced higher mortalities due to disease issues; however, steps have been taken to reorganize management and transfer expertise from Faroese staff.
During Q2 2025, Bakkafrost harvested 23,054 tonnes gutted weight from its combined Faroe Islands and Scotland farming segments—an increase compared to Q2 2024. For H1 2025 total harvest reached 48,254 tonnes gutted weight.
Bakkafrost increased its full-year harvest guidance for both regions by approximately 7%, projecting about 104,000 tonnes gutted weight for 2025 (82,000 tonnes from Faroe Islands and 22,000 tonnes from Scotland). The company noted that global salmon supply grew significantly—by about 16.6% including inventory movements—in Q2 compared to last year. This contributed to reference prices falling over 33% year-on-year for key product sizes.
Operational highlights included record feeding volumes and high average smolt weights transferred: average smolt weight was up 20% year-on-year in Faroe Islands (464g), while Scotland saw an even greater increase (average smolt release at Applecross rose by 80% over Q1). The Scottish operation continues ramping up large smolt production capacity despite ongoing challenges related to disease-driven mortality at certain modules.
On investments and future plans: Bakkafrost announced on its June Capital Markets Day a DKK 5 billion investment plan covering years 2026-2030 aimed at boosting efficiency and supporting sustainable growth across its regions. Planned investments include expanding hatchery capacity (with construction progressing on schedule), upgrading feed production facilities and new site developments both in Faroe Islands and Scotland.
The Board maintained its dividend policy of paying out between 30-50% of earnings per share; DKK 8.44 per share was paid out following approval at April’s AGM.
Financially Bakkafrost remains well positioned with solid equity ratios supported by sustainability-linked credit facilities secured since March 2022.