In the bustling Norwegian town of Aalesund, with its wide range of businesses specializing in marine aquaculture, fisheries and other maritime activities, Anita and Anders Pedersen founded Fjordlaks in 1973, to produce and sell smoked wild salmon.
Aalesund grew over the course of the 19th century thanks to the flourishing fish trade, a tradition that Fjordlaks is continuing. The company’s first salmon and trout farm began operating in Storfjord in 1976. In the following years, the company established several other farms in the same area. Today all of the farms are located in Storfjord, a fjord close to Geiranger and Geirangerfjord, roughly a two-hour drive through some of Norway’s most pristine terrain.
Beginning in 1990 Fjordlaks established a speciality in farmed trout, oncohuncus mykiss. Ten years later it built a new slaughter and production plant for the processing of trout, at the same time processing crude trout fish oil. In 2002 the company started small-scale cod and saithe (a kosher member of the cod family) farming, supplying Fjordlaks with raw materials for the production of crude liver oil.
All of the farms are located in sparsely populated locations without any pollution from industry in a fjord that is up to 600 meters deep with good conditions for fish farming. Our locations provide the very best biological and environmental conditions for the fish; they are fed with a special high-quality fish feed. As a result, we offer the best fish and oil products.
Every day live farmed fish are brought by boat to the slaughter facility where within a few hours they are slaughtered and the raw material for oil production is pumped directly into the factory for further processing. There our crude oils are produced by a specialized staff from the fresh raw materials. The oils all have a very fresh quality and contain a high percentage of Omega-3 fatty acids. The products are mainly refined at Denomega Nutritional Oils in Aalesund, and sold to the functional food market.
Fjordlaks’ OU certified products include crude cod liver oil, crude trout oil and crude saithe liver oil. OU certification provides us with the opportunity to sell our products in a wider market. Fjordlaks’ success is owed both to the quality of its products and increased opportunities for sales made possible by OU certification.