Virtual view of Great Northern Salmon's project in Millinocket, Maine.
Photo: Great Northern Salmon.
The Maine-based RAS salmon project, Great Northern Salmon (GNS), announced yesterday new strategic partnerships for its future land-based farm in Millinocket. The collaborations, which the company said are "crucial" for the development of its site in Maine, include partnerships for off-take, RAS vendor, investment bank, and local partners for engineering and construction.
"Over the past two years, Great Northern Salmon has deliberately built a skilled in-house industry team to ensure strong planning and execution capabilities," GNS stated, referring to the arrival of experienced profiles to the project such as hatchery expert Kevin Kelsey, Head of Finance Katie Pullen, or, more recently, the two new members of its Board of Directors, the experienced General Counsel Bjarne Tellmann and former Innovasea CEO David Kelly.
"At the same time, we have established mature, trusted partnerships with companies dedicated to mutual success," it added, noting that these partnerships, now announced, have been developed over time and have now been formalized.
Reviewing some of its key partners, Great Northern Salmon highlighted Stavis Seafood first. Currently owned by Spain-based Profand Group, this company has been a New England seafood leader since 1929. In its note, GNS announced that this same year, 2026, it finalized a six-year sales agreement with the Boston-headquartered company for its upcoming production.
"The relationship with Stavis Seafoods began two years ago with an LOI and has now been upgraded to a binding offtake agreement, with import costs to Boston serving as the pricing benchmark. This price position gives GNS strong margin advantages over imported fresh salmon, even without a price premium," Great Northern Salmon explained.
Likewise, GNS also reported that it has signed an agreement with AKVA group to become its technology partner. "We have maintained strong relationships with AKVA Group over the years, and the parties are aligned on design priorities. After a thorough evaluation of several vendors, AKVA Group emerged as the best fit for GNS’s needs," it said.
In its statement, GNS highlighted that AKVA group, which delivered its first design work to GNS in 2025, is the leading global vendor in the aquaculture industry with extensive experience in design and delivery, recalling that the Norwegian company has completed multiple successful international reference projects, including Nordic Aqua Partners in China.
Regarding engineering and construction, the Maine-based RAS salmon project pointed out its long-standing relationship with PC Construction, which has been formalized through a CM (Construction Management) contract. GNS added that it has chosen SMRT as its architect and engineering partner.
"We have collaborated with both for years, and both have developed specialized experience in the aquaculture and water treatment sectors," the statement read.
Great Northern Salmon's announcement also highlighted the financial partnerships secured over the past two years.
Specifically, at the end of 2025, GNS signed a contract with Morgan Stanley for capital raising and advisory services. Now, the company says that the relationship has grown over time, becoming a valuable addition to its existing capital raising partnerships with Pareto Securities and IFG Asset Management.
Finally, GNS highlighted the strong public-private collaboration behind its development in Millinocket, which it said "has been essential".
"Our Katahdin, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), EMDC (Eastern Maine Development Corporation), DECD (Department of Economic and Community Development), MTI (Maine Technology Institute), FAME (the Finance Authority of Maine), and NRBC (Northern Border Regional Commission) have all contributed significantly along the way," the statement said.
The future land-based salmon producer also noted that, as recently as this month, it received USD 2 million in new development funds from MTI. Great Northern Salmon—which announced the news on its LinkedIn page under the headline "Another win for Millinocket"—was one of the 23 Maine businesses and research organizations awarded to support a broad array of forward-looking products and technology and drive growth in Maine's innovation economy.
"These awards will help innovative Maine companies develop new products and technology compete on the global stage and provide our renowned research organizations with funding to continue groundbreaking research and development," said Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, when announcing the awardees. "These projects, matched by significant private sector investment's, will support thousands of good jobs and provide economic benefits for years to come."
With reference to Great Northern Salmon, the project summary included in the document reporting the award amount and project summaries of the MTI Maine Technology Asset Fund 3.0 noted that the United States is the largest consumer market for Atlantic salmon in the world, but currently, more than 97% of the Atlantic salmon consumed in the country is imported.
"There is a strong case for developing domestic supply and American made products, both from an environmental and from a food security and resiliency perspective. While there is a growing industry for land-based aquaculture in Europe and in Asia, GNS is the only mature project in this sector in the U.S.," the summary added.
"We have built these relationships and others over time to achieve strong alignment on goals, collaboration, and shared interest in developing aquaculture in Maine. Additional partners also deserve credit, and more will be formalized in 2026, all part of building strong and resilient execution capabilities beyond our own team," GNS CEO Marianne Naess said in closing.
Just one day before the announcement of these strategic partnerships, Great Northern Salmon had used its LinkedIn page to share an update on the status of its site in Millinocket, Maine, which, after carrying out fall 2024 preparation work, began to transform approximately a year ago.
The company shared that its 30-acre lagoon was dewatered and is being prepared for construction. According to GNS, this work is scheduled to be completed early this summer (was 80% complete before winter) before moving on to construction.
"Why are we doing this? We end up with a level site excavated to 15 feet on hard-packed glacial till, a site with connected power and water infrastructure, 100% local hydro behind the meter, plenty of water, and substantial subsidies to repurpose a brownfield site in an underdeveloped community," it explained.
"Millinocket has provided an exceptionally good development site for land-based salmon development, and we are on our way to deliver more local jobs in return," GNS added.
Great Northern Salmon's planning, however, has not only progressed in terms of infrastructure but also in production. "Planning a land-based aquaculture facility must be based on some non-negotiable pillars. It starts with robust production planning that accounts for natural biological variability," the company recently claimed, sharing its approach in this regard.