From left to right, Norwegian Seafood Council CEO Christian Chramer, Norwegian footballers Alexander Sorloth and Vilde Bøe Risa, and Lerøy Seafood Group CEO Henning Beltestad.
Photo: Consejo de Productos del Mar de Noruega en España.
At a joint event with the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) held at its processing plant in Pinto, south of Madrid, Lerøy Seafood's Spanish subsidiary confirmed its good forecasts for the Spanish market. The company said it expects to increase its turnover to EUR 160 million by the 2025 financial year, a strong growth of 30% from the EUR 122.5 million achieved in 2024.
The information was advanced by Leroy Processing Spain's CEO, Antonio Díez. He was the host of the visit that Norwegian football players Alexander Sorloth and Vilde Bøe Risa - from Atlético de Madrid men's and women's teams, respectively - made to the facility, mainly dedicated to the processing of salmon, in addition to other species and the preparation of dishes such as sushi, poke or gyozas.
During this tour to learn how Norwegian salmon is processed in Spain, Díez was also accompanied by Lerøy Seafood Group's CEO, Henning Beltestad, the Group's Operations Director, Ivar Wulff, the Norwegian Seafood Council envoy to Spain, Tore Holvik, and the NSC's CEO at a global level, Christian Chramer.
Present in more than 80 international markets, Lerøy Seafood Group is Norway's leading seafood exporter and the world's third-largest producer of Atlantic salmon - its salmon and trout harvest increased by almost 45% in Q1 2025.
Its Spanish subsidiary started operating in 2013, precisely in the Pinto facility, when it began working on its first business line, consisting of the processing and distribution of fresh fish. Two years later, in 2015, Leroy Processing Spain started a new line dedicated to the preparation of sushi and Japanese food.
"Since then, the company has grown exponentially in production volume, assortment variety, infrastructure, and human resources, with nearly 600 employees," explained CEO Antonio Díez.
From 2017 to present, several openings have taken place in cities such as Valencia and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, in addition to the inauguration in 2021 of its new facility in the Madrid town of Pinto, where it all began.
During the visit to the Leroy Processing Spain facility, the NSC envoy to Spain, Tore Holvik, said that salmon is the most demanded seafood product in the Spanish market. "In our surveys, it always figures as the favorite fish of Spaniards," he stated.
And he added one more fact: of the 21 million servings of salmon consumed each day worldwide, more than 1.4 million servings correspond to Spain.
"Spain is the sixth largest market for Norwegian seafood, with salmon leading sales, thanks in large part to a boom in sushi, sashimi, poke, and other ready-to-eat packaged formats resulting from innovation," Holvik continued.
"Fortunately, we have enjoyed a strong increase and demand for salmon over the years, and the outlook for the future is very positive. In 2024, Norway exported 96,282 tons of seafood to Spain worth EUR 750 million, with salmon as the undisputed leader," NSC's envoy to Spain noted.
