Atlantic Sapphire recovery continues into 2025

Atlantic Sapphire raises salmon in a RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) farm in a system it calls the “Bluehouse”. The new Q1 figures reflect a continuing improvement in the group’s performance after a difficult time 18 months ago.

In its first quarter trading update, the company said that around 154 tonnes of small fish was culled, finalising the planned culling measures to adapt the standing biomass to the current feeding capacity.

During the quarter, the net biomass gain was approximately 1,449 tonnes , recirculating land water (RLW). The 2024 Q4 figure was 1,150 tonnes.

The standing biomass at the end of the period was 2,997 tonnes live weight against 3,180 tonnes in the final three months of last year.

Atlantic Sapphire said: “During the fourth quarter, biological development progressed favourably with stable water quality and temperatures, low mortalities, and increased harvest weight following the operational measures taken to increase harvest size.

The realised average harvest weight in the quarter was 3.1kg HOG (heads on, gutted) against 2.4kg towards the end of 2024.

The realised sales price for Atlantic’s fresh salmon sales in the quarter was US $8.30 per kilo (£6.45) HOG up from $7.90 per kilo (£6.14) in the final quarter of 2024.

Atlantic Sapphire moved from Denmark several years ago, to pioneer its land-raised salmon in a part of the United States hitherto not known for high grade aquaculture.