When talking about his work, the protagonist of today's Talent View, Rune Eriksen, doesn't need too many words to make it clear to the listener that he loves what he does. In fact, if this article were a creative writing exercise and he was to provide us with the concepts to work with, his three words would be people, (hard) work, and (lot of) fun.
If this exercise were to continue and we were in charge of choosing the next concept, we would have no hesitation in adding the word cod. On the other hand, if it was him, he would surely go on the word journey. Because for Rune his career in the aquaculture industry is a journey, a trip that, judging by the twinkle in his eye when he talks about his work, he is enjoying like nobody else.
It is said that the longest journey begins with one step. In Rune's case, his journey in aquaculture began by taking his first step almost by chance, and hand in hand with a friend. "It was a bit of a coincidence because a friend from my childhood times was working at the farming site in SalMar, so he gave me, to begin with, a short time drop working on the site. And after that, I got a permanent job and it has just snowballed", he says. That snowball started to pick up speed and in less than a year, Rune Eriksen was already site manager, a position he held for almost three years. Then came EWOS, where he spent a couple of years "working with different farming companies and their feeding strategy, and how they were feeding their salmon".
Then in 2015, the responsibility increased. "I started in the job as a CEO, in what is now NRS Troms, but at the time it was called Nord-Senja Laks and it was a small company in Senja where I got an opportunity to scale-up production in the company and improve the farming results. So, we went from being the segment in an NRS with poor results on the biology results to becoming the best ones", he tells us and adds, "it was a lot of fun and a lot of work". It is said that it doesn't matter how you get there as long as you get there but, isn't it curious that he uses the word fun before the word work?
And there was Rune, having fun when in the fall of 2018 AquacultureTalent contacted him. They had a position for being the CEO of Norcod, a new business that offered him the opportunity to farm cod again in Norway. His answer was long overdue. "At the first, I was a skeptic and had to do my own research on what's been happening since the last time we had the cod farming", he says. But he did it and, in the end, he made up his mind. "Finally, before New Year, I signed the contract and started in March 2019, as the first to work in Norcod".
"I started to make the strategy, and build up the company, and hire people to work along with me and to build Norcod, and prepare for our production of cod, not only in the sea but also on land, before the sea phase", Rune continues. "Many people were skeptical because of what happened last time with cod farming, so we had to be very clear about how we were planning to do the production, and that we would be using new equipment, that we would be implementing my feeding strategy for the cod, and that we were in it for a long term". Commitment is another important word in Rune Eriksen's story. In fact, he confesses that when deciding on this job it was very important to him that Sirena Group, the main owner at the time and still a shareholder, thought long-term, that "they were genuinely looking at producing and delivering sustainable farm cod to the market and with supplies the whole year".
So, the challenge was not just to find sites at sea and sites on land to produce the cod seedlings, "it was a challenge to convince the suppliers of equipment that we have the cash to pay for this, and it was also an issue with the banks, they were not believing in cod farming because of the history", says Rune. The challenge was to convince the skeptics. "They were looking at me with odd eyes and thinking I was a bit crazy, and it was fine with me because I knew after my own research before Christmas in 2018, that the cod was going to deliver and perform at sea. So, I was convinced on that part, so therefore I ignored that people didn't believe in it, and, you know, after we've seen it's been working, so it's been very great".
Norcod has grown since then, and the company has been renewing some positions; in those changes, Rune left the CEO position to become Production Manager. "It's been a fantastic journey, where I meet a lot of people and that's also been burning for making cod farming again possible. It's been a lot of work and challenges to overcome that I feel we have overcome in a good way. And for me personally, of course, it's been fun to be able to build up a new company and also cod farming again in Norway, especially when a lot of people meant it was not possible", that's his final balance.
Rune told us at the beginning that it all started with a call from a friend; then met people along the way in the jobs that came after; later a headhunting company appeared, one of those that put the right talents together. Those are the stories behind the industry that we like to talk about at WeAreAquaculture, the human side behind it, and we did it with him. We talked about how people and personal relationships influence the development of a career in aquaculture. We agree people are the key.
Proud of his personal accomplishments, Rune knows he hasn't gotten to where he is on his own. "All the way, your personal network, and people that you work with in the farming industry in Norway is a key to being able… if it wasn't for the people in the farming industry, we wouldn't be able to build Norcod as this company, so it's crucial", he claims.
And he goes further. "A wise man in Harstad once told me that you have to take care of your personal network because they will always be important to make possible things for your company", he tells us, and it seems that the message of that wise man has stuck with him. "I think it's very important and myself, I am concerned with that we are treating people good and as I myself want to be treated". Personally, and professionally, people are always important to him.
He may have started in this by chance, but at this point in his journey, Rune is passionate about aquaculture. "It's a fantastic industry to work in", he says. "There's no other way to produce food and protein in a more sustainable way than farming in the sea. Whether it's salmon or cod or other species, that's the way to produce food with the lowest footprint, that's a fact. UN also confirms that".
He talks about more species, but we can't resist asking him once again about cod. After all, this return to cod farming may mark (or should we say is already marking?) a before and after in the Norwegian aquaculture industry. What will it mean? "Our farmed cod, we will be able to produce sustainably, and it's a high protein source, with over 20% protein, also better as chicken, and we can deliver cod all the year and not have to consider the weather. And also, it's bug-free as we know what the farmed cod has been eating through the whole cycle".
However, there are challenges associated with anything new. Eriksen believes that for cod farming it is going to be the sites at the sea, but he is still optimistic. "I believe in the next years this will come to a solution because the government in Norway will make it possible to get more sites at sea because it's not only important to produce the cod, but it's also important for the country to have jobs that we are building society, the communities in the districts of Norway where the sites are. So, I think it will come to a solution".
As we said at the beginning, we would have chosen the word cod, but Rune would have preferred to talk about the journey, about that "amazing journey where we have got it from milestone to milestone". He feels that he is at the starting point of an important trip. One where he will meet more people, more wise men to give him good advice, and where he will surely keep working hard, but in the end, it will be worth it. Rune just wanna have fun, and we bet he's going to get it.
Norcod is the culmination of a challenge never solved before: to raise premium Atlantic Cod sustainably and commercially. Now in its sixth generation, the cod is naturally bred in Norwegian fjords. The existing fish farms are located in Mid- and North Norway and contribute to blue ocean value creation with minimal impact on the environment while supporting local communities. The company has this activity as its core business but participates in the entire value chain through ownership and partnerships. Listed on Oslo's Euronext Growth market, its next step will be to uplist to Oslo Stock Exchange.