Skrettings plant at Averøy is a reference plant within Skretting Group.                               Photo: Harald M. Valderhaug 

On Friday, September 20, Erlend Sødal, Managing Director of Skretting Norway, officially opened the extended fish feed plant in Averøy in mid-Norway. This Skretting production facility is today the largest and most modern fish feed plant in the world.

Skretting Averøy has become a reference plant within Skretting Group. A proud Plant Manager, Jorulv Søbstad, said, “We put a major effort into this project, which has taken two years to complete. In that time, nearly 600 people have visited and worked at the facility.”

Hilde Roald, the Production Manager, added, “Twenty nationalities were represented during the construction. This is the most comprehensive and successful project we have ever completed. We started to prepare the site two and a half years ago. More than 9,000 hours went into administration and project management and around 400,000 man-hours were invested in work on-site. It has been a challenging job for employees at the facility and not least for our 40 suppliers. They were given with a rigorous work schedule and they\'ve stuck to the plan.”

Production continued throughout the construction process. “At times it could be challenging,” said Søbstad. “One time we built a new plant under open skies while production went on inside. We can now produce 450,000 tons of feed a year. It is impressive when we look back to the original facility in 1983. Then we could produce 6,000 tons of feed per year. Now we can ship out 12,000 tons of feed each week.”

High tech production facilities. Photo: Heine Schjølberg