"Well, to start with the last thing, our cod is doing great". This is the first answer Rune Eriksen gives us at the beginning of our chat. We ask him about his new position at Vesterålen Havbruk first and production later, but he prefers to start with the cod. November is the month when they will harvest their first harvest and the new COO is looking forward to it. Maybe he's a veteran in cod farming, but he loves startups, he enjoys building the company and getting it off the ground, from inception to growth.
When his new position became public, Vesterålen Havbruk's LinkedIn post read: "Rune is considered a veteran in the cod farming business, and we are very excited to have him joining our team. This will most definitely strengthen our position in the up scaling of cod farming". The excitement is mutual. "I am glad to be joining Vesterålen Havbruk, they have taken me with open arms, and I am looking forward to planning and building a company with the cod farming part", Eriksen tells WeAreAquaculture.
But yes, he says it after telling us about the cod because, as said, his first words are "our cod is doing great". The new COO explains that the fish arrived on site in August last year, and have grown well over the last year, which means that Vesterålen will start harvesting its cod this November. No doubt a milestone in this cod company's commitment to aquaculture, although they are taking it one step at a time. "It is a small site, as we call it, a pilot project, like a test with less than 300 000 cods as you may have seen on our website", Rune says. And when he talks about seeing the cod, he means it literally.
Vesterålen Havbruk has a live stream from one of the cages at its Hornet site. This is part of the company's transparency strategy, but it is not the only one. Anyone who is curious can go to the website and there, in addition to seeing how the cod swim, they can also download free production documentation. "Everything we do shall be traceable and transparent", they say on the website, so everyone will have access to all of the documentation on their fish.
That part of transparency is one of what most attracted Rune to join the project and commit to it. Eriksen is not only an employee of Vesterålen Havbruk, he has also bought shares in the company and is now the fourth largest shareholder. He likes "the way of having a company where you are focused on doing things properly". Of course, as he immediately qualifies, this is true of more companies, but of his new company, he likes that – as he says – when it comes to transparency, "we don't just talk about it, we do it".
"We have the possibility here to look at the production and how we are doing things with new eyes", he claims. And he gives us an example of what will happen at the new site they just got in the Harstad area. "Here we will be using equipment that not so many have used before to collect feces, and if some feed has not been eaten by the fish, we can collect the feed also". That feed will not be reusable, but with this new system, more than 60% of the waste will be collected which will help reduce the footprint at the site.
Transparency and concern for the environment are, as mentioned, important issues for Rune when joining Vesterålen Havbruk, but not the only ones. The fact that it is a multi-part company that also works with wild cod was another important point. Vesterålen has a slaughterhouse – "which is now slaughtering cod for Norcod" -, a fish reception or depot where the fish vessels deliver the wild cod and other species. "And we also have Primex, a facility to utilize the whole fish with both. It was originally meant for wild fish but is now also being used for salmon and farmed cod", he explains.
When we talked with Rune Eriksen for his TalentView some months ago, we said he felt that he was at the starting point of an important trip. That journey, the journey of farmed cod, began at Norcod. He was the company's first employee and, after building the project virtually from scratch, he rose to the position of CEO. At the time of that interview, he was the Director of Production – interestingly Norcod has just announced that its CFO, Kia Zadegan, has been appointed COO – but the time had come to continue the journey to a new stage.
He chose Vesterålen Havbruk "most of all because of the positive possibilities", but his pride in what he achieved at Norcod and affection for his team remains intact. "It's been a fantastic journey to build Norcod together with great people there", he claims. But, as he sees it, "Norcod is now almost in the stage where you can just copy what's been done so far on new sites. But here it's possible to be alone from the beginning again and be a part of the strategy and the building of the company from startup on the farming site". We said it at the beginning, he loves startups.
He also loves people. "I enjoy it very much when I can work together with smart people", he states, "so, that's fun for me". There is the strategy, there is the business model, there is the equipment, but in the end, people and talent, always play an essential role. "It's important that we always remember that everything is depending on the people", Rune points out. "Everything is, in the end, done by people, even though you have some machines that are doing part of the work. You still have to have the right people to tell the machines what to do". And Vesterålen Havbruk has a great team behind it that we are gradually getting to know thanks to its communication strategy on LinkedIn.
Rune Eriksen's passion for people and cod become one when it comes to Torskenettverket. In addition to COO of Vesterålen Havbruk, he is also the leader of the steering group of the National Cod Farming Network (Torskenettverket in its original Norwegian name). "A group that started with the cod farmers and the companies who wanted to start with cod farming back in 2019", he says. The network now has over 40 members, mostly farmers or companies that will be starting farming in the next years, but also suppliers of farming equipment, for example.
According to his leader, people are willing to share their experiences in order to work together – "as it was in the beginning, when people started with salmon farming", he says – even when they know that at the end of the road, they are competitors. "It's important for cod network and the members that we are together building this part of the farming industry and that we have to do it right this time", he explains. "We all are focused on doing it with high quality and also delivering high-quality cod to the market. And, of course, in the end, we have to sell our cod at a high enough price that it's financial sustainability also". So, in search of that common good, they focus on the various areas where they can work together.
There is a lot of work ahead for a sector that is still in its infancy but which, if it is able to achieve the scale it is aiming for, could also be affected by the resource tax that the Norwegian government has proposed for the time being for salmon. That is why people and being united, are so important. "Everything is changing much faster in society nowadays than just 20 years ago, so we have to be prepared for changes", says Rune. But, when it's related to cod, he is ready, working hard, and still having fun.
