Demand for salmon continues to soar, but – unfortunately – there are limited places where conditions are suitable for traditional net pen farms. As a result, a growing number of companies are establishing indoor facilities where, in theory, ideal growing conditions can be created, even in locations well beyond the natural range of the species.

However, despite a number of advances in this field, land-based salmon producers still face a number of key challenges, not least how to make their ventures profitable.

The evolution of an idea

Growing salmon in contained facilities on land – usually circular tanks inside large warehouse-like buildings – is a concept that has gained significant traction and investment over the last decade.

In an era of environmental instability, the appeal of producing fish in tanks in which all parameters – such as water temperature, pH and oxygen levels – can be optimised is clear. The salmon can also be shielded from predators and parasites, while neither the fish nor their waste can escape into the wild, thereby largely eliminating a farm’s impact on the marine environment.

What’s more, while conventional salmon farming can only be carried out in a handful of countries – such as Norway, Chile and Scotland (which are blessed with the right conditions), land-based salmon farms can be established in locations where the species could not otherwise survive, including in tropical climates and locations miles from the ocean. The farms are often close to urban areas where demand for salmon is strong.

Indoor aquaculture has occurred for many decades, but due to the expense of both building and running these facilities, it was largely used for the juvenile stage of the salmon’s life cycle. After smoltification – the process by which young salmon prepare themselves for the migration from fresh to salt-water – the smolts are conventionally transferred to net pens in the sea.

However, in the new generation of land-based facilities the salmon are grown to market size – ideally to around 5 kg – under one roof.

In terms of the technology, land-based salmon farms are generally divided between recirculation aquaculture systems (RASs), in which the vast majority of the water is recycled, and flow-through systems, in which seawater is constantly pumped into the tanks before being filtered and returned to the ocean.

Key players in the industry

Atlantic salmon are now being grown to market size in land-based facilities around the world – from China and Saudi Arabia, to Japan.

One of the world’s most well-known land-based salmon farms is near Miami in Florida. It is operated by a company called Atlantic Sapphire, which has ambitions to grow 200,000 tonnes of the fish per year. Although they have yet to harvest more than 5,000 tonnes in a single year, the company remains committed to its operations and believes that it has learned invaluable lessons from the challenges that it has overcome in its early years.

In Europe, Norway has the largest number of land-based salmon farms, and one of the ones that Pittman Seafoods sees as the most promising is operated by Salmon Evolution. The company has opted for a hybrid RAS / flow-through system, which is showing great potential. Not only is their system outperforming pure RAS facilities, but in the first quarter of 2024 it also outperformed many of the publicly listed conventional salmon producers, suggesting that such hybrid systems could be economically viable in the long term.

Salmon Evolution’s farm was recently visited by the Pittman Seafood team and they were suitably impressed, concluding that “there is now no longer any doubt whether land-based salmon farming works—both operationally and financially.” Others are clearly in agreement, as similar flow-through systems are currently under construction both in Norway and Iceland – by companies including Andfjord and GeoSalmo. They are also being backed by many industry analysts as one of the most promising avenues for expanding salmon production.

However, it will be a long time before land-based systems are able to approach the 1.2 million tonnes of salmon that Norway’s conventional salmon farmers currently produce each year.

Will land-based salmon have a significant impact on the market?

Land-based salmon might still be niche, but – as costs of producing salmon at sea increase in line with climate change – many investors project that they could reach cost parity with their conventionally-grown counterparts within a decade. In the meantime some producers are looking to charge premium prices, which they justify by promoting themselves as sustainable alternatives to conventionally farmed salmon.

Whether they are truly more sustainable is the subject of much debate – with critics pointing to their high energy consumption and occasional mass mortality incidents. However, in their favour, land-based famers are able to contain – and upcycle – all fish waste. Moreover, the chances of salmon escaping and interbreeding with wild stocks is close to zero, which is a major advantage, as far as preservation of precious wild salmon stocks is concerned.

In terms of the different technological options for land-based salmon farming, flow-through systems are currently showing more promise than RAS. These systems, which help to meet the growing demand for Europe’s favourite farmed fish, will largely be confined to regions where conventional salmon farming is practiced due to their need to source large volumes of cold, clean sea water.

While Pittman Seafoods will continue to source our salmon from traditional net pen farmers, it’s exciting to see that these volumes can now be supplemented by a new generation of high-tech farms, ensuring a steady supply of salmon from both land and sea.