Lerøy employees at Brandasund's aquaculture site.
Photo: KIND | Conceptual Branding / Lerøy Seafood Group.
Norway-based Lerøy Seafood Group this week released its Q2 2025 trading update. As was the case in Q1, the highlights are the good results of its farming division, which grew by 33.24% compared to the same quarter last year, while wild catches are still below previous periods.
With a volume of 48,900 GWT (gutted weight tons), salmon and trout harvest in this second quarter was 33.24% higher - 12,200 tons more - than in Q2 2024, when it reached 36,700 GWT. Thus, although in percentage terms the year-on-year growth in the first quarter was 44.69%, in this second quarter, not only did the upward trend of Q1 2025 continue, but the total harvest volume of salmon and trout in Q2 was 10,700 tons higher than in the first quarter of this year.
By region, Lerøy Sjøtroll - where both salmon and trout are farmed - was the area with the highest total volume. A total of 20,900 GWT were harvested, which is 5,000 tons more - 31.44% up - than the 15,900 tons in Q2 2024. Of these, 9,800 tons were trout, up 84.90% from last year, when they were 5,300 tons.
According to the trading update, the next farming region with the highest total harvested volume was Lerøy Midt, which recorded 16,900 tons in the second quarter of 2025. Compared to the 15,700 harvested in the same quarter last year, this means an increase of 7.64%, or 1,200 tons more.
Finally, in this Q2 2025, Lerøy Aurora was the region with the lowest total volume collected - it was 11,100 tons - but, in contrast, it had the highest percentage increase, by 117.64%, as it recorded 6,000 GWT more than the 5,100 tons collected in Q2 2024.
As for wild catches, the total volume recorded by Lerøy Havfisk (Lerøy Sea Fish) in the second quarter reached 17,700 tons, of which 1,200 were cod, a figure only slightly lower than in the same period last year, when 17,800 tons were recorded, 1,500 of which were cod. In other words, in year-on-year terms, there is a difference of only -100 tons, a decrease of just 0.56%.
Therefore, even if, as usual, the figures provided in the trading update exclude harvest volumes from Scottish Seafarms - a 50/50 joint venture with SalMar -, Lerøy Seafood Group's results appear to continue the trend set in the fourth quarter of 2024, when it reported "higher than expected" harvest volumes.
Regarding the fishing division, we will have to wait until August 20, when the full report for the second quarter of 2025 will be published, to know the reason for the percentage improvement reflected this month in the trend - still downward - started last year, when the company explained that it was due to quota restrictions.