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Aquaculture didn’t change in 2025 because one variable moved. It changed because pressure shifted
across the system. Norway makes that easier to see than most regions. The data is deep, consistent, and tied to operational outcomes. Norway functions as a clean reference system for how constraints propagate across biology, costs, environment, and regulation.
Four forces still do most of the steering:
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Business conditions
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Biological conditions
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Environmental conditions
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Regulatory conditions
When one tightens, the others don’t stay still. They compensate, amplify, or break. 2025 was a clear example: weak prices compressed risk tolerance, biology stayed unusually stable, environmental pressure showed up through lice, and regulation remained the ceiling. That interaction (not any single metric) is the most useful lens for 2026.
Business conditions: compressed margins, reduced tolerance for risk
Salmon prices dropped sharply early in 2025 and remained weak for most of the year.
Over the first four months, prices fell roughly 40%, from averages above $12/kg down to lows around $7/kg. The industry expected a quick rebound. It didn’t materialize.
By year-end, prices recovered into a more “normal” range around $8–$9/kg. On paper, that likely puts 2025 above 2021, similar to 2022, and below 2023 and 2024. But inflation and cost increases change the picture: the financial reality is worse than the nominal price suggests.
Company reporting reflected that stress. In multiple quarters, a large share of companies and regions posted negative EBIT per kilo. In Q3, fewer than half of the companies tracked generated a profit.
The behavioral response was predictable: tighter capital allocation and consolidation. Acquisitions involving Grieg, Nova Sea, and Bolaks, alongside asset sales and strategic shifts. Mowi moved to divest its feed division. Benchmark Genetics was sold.
Why this matters for 2026: margin compression reduces appetite for uncertainty. That constrains everything from stocking and treatment strategies to how quickly operators can adopt new systems or absorb regulatory tightening.
Biological conditions: a stable year, with incentives aligned to harvest
One of the clearest bright spots in 2025 was biological performance.
There was no widespread collapse. Compared to recent years of winter wounds, jellyfish impacts, and algae events, 2025 was relatively calm. Diseases like PD were largely managed, and major outbreaks such as ISA were avoided.
Mortality data isn’t fully published yet, but the pattern indicates industry-wide mortality improved by a couple of percentage points year over year. Against Norway’s stated goal of reducing mortality to 5% by 2035, that’s real progress.
Context matters. The improvement came during one of the calmest periods in recent memory for disease pressure - while financial incentives pushed companies to keep as many fish alive as possible through harvest.
It also wasn’t isolated. Other major regions, including Chile and Scotland, experienced relatively calm biological conditions. That helped welfare outcomes, but it also contributed to global supply strength—reinforcing weak pricing.
Why this matters for 2026: calm biology can mask structural fragility. When multiple regions stay stable at once, prices compress. When that stability breaks, the cost of response rises fast, especially under tighter margins.
Environmental conditions: record temperatures, record lice pressure
2025 was a record year for sea temperatures across Norway.
The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research reported record-high temperatures along much of the coast. Operationally, unusually high temperatures showed up early (already in April) signaling elevated risk well before peak season.
Those conditions translated into one of the most difficult sea lice seasons on record.
The year began with higher lice levels than the previous five-year baseline, and pressure persisted. Lice levels peaked in August and remained elevated through the rest of the year.
Treatment activity increased substantially. Monthly treatment records were set throughout the year, and overall treatment counts were roughly 20% higher than the year before.
Heading into 2026, lice levels remain elevated. Cooler temperatures may provide relief, but sustained early-season pressure matters, especially as wild smolt migration periods approach.
Why this matters for 2026: lice is where environmental variability becomes operational cost, welfare risk, and regulatory exposure. When the year starts high, planning optionality shrinks quickly.
Regulatory conditions: the ceiling didn’t move
Regulation continues to act as a hard constraint on the Norwegian system. Wild salmon survey outcomes and related lice exposure signals remain core inputs into how the traffic light framework constrains growth.
Recent results point toward limited, if any, growth:
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Production areas 2–10: high exposure, where >30% of fish samples had enough sea lice to kill the animal
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11 and 12: moderate exposure
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1 and 13: low exposure
If correlated to how the traffic light has been applied historically, the most defensible expectation is stable volumes at best, and more realistically, additional yellow zones over the next few years. This backdrop is fueling increased interest in alternative farming systems—submerged pens, semi-closed solutions, and other innovations. The constraint is speed. Development and deployment take time, and near-term impact remains limited.
Meanwhile, policymakers are also debating issues that extend beyond biology: consolidation, foreign ownership, and broader geopolitical considerations. Why this matters for 2026: regulation doesn’t just respond to biology. It sets investment timelines and forces the industry into trade-offs between operational burden and system redesign.
What 2025 set up for 2026
The key signal from 2025 isn’t that one category dominated. It’s that pressure distributed unevenly:
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Business weakened and reduced tolerance for uncertainty
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Biology improved and supported output stability
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Environment intensified and converted into lice-driven cost and risk
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Regulation held as the hard ceiling on growth
That interaction is the system-level setup for 2026. The practical implication is simple: 2026 won’t be defined by whether trade-offs exist. It will be defined by whether companies can see them early, quantify them clearly, and choose which pressures to absorb, before those pressures show up as surprises in welfare outcomes, compliance status, or financial performance.
This isn’t about building cleaner narratives. It’s about building clearer decision-making under constraint.