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P/F Bakkafrost
Bakkafrost farms salmon in the Faroe Islands and Scotland and turns some of it into fishmeal, oil, and feed.
Bakkafrost is a salmon farming company. It raises salmon from tiny eggs to full-grown fish, harvests them, and sells them to customers around Europe and the wider world. People buy its salmon to eat — restaurants, fish sellers, and food companies that turn it into fillets, portions, and smoked products.
The company runs three connected pieces. The biggest is fish farming: it breeds salmon, grows them in pens in the sea around the Faroe Islands and Scotland, and processes them when they reach size. The second is feed — it makes fishmeal, fish oil, and salmon feed, partly because feed is the single largest cost in salmon farming, so owning that supply gives it more control over costs. The third is selling value-added salmon products, like smoked and frozen portions, which bring in more money per fish than plain whole salmon. What makes Bakkafrost interesting is geography. The Faroe Islands sit in cold, clean North Atlantic water, and the company argues this gives its salmon a quality and health advantage. It has also invested heavily in Scotland, where it bought and rebuilt a farming business. Salmon farming is a tough, cyclical business: prices swing with global supply, and biological problems like sea lice or disease can hit hard. That is the main risk.
The company is controlled by the Jacobsen family, and it pays out a big chunk of its profits as dividends rather than hoarding cash. Growth comes from building more farming capacity, raising the share of fish it sells as higher-value products, and improving survival rates in its pens. It is a real, substantial salmon producer — not a small player — but it lives or dies on fish health and the worldwide salmon price.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Bakkafrost now sends 31% of its Faroese salmon to North America
- 31% Faroese salmon sold to North America
- 69% Faroese salmon sold elsewhere (Europe, Asia and other markets)
Almost a third of the salmon Bakkafrost raises in the Faroe Islands is now sold in North America, up from a smaller share before. Asia took 15%, while Western Europe's share fell to 47%. The Faroes are where the company harvests the bulk of its fish, so where those fish get eaten shapes its prices and profits as much as how many it farms. Source: P/F Bakkafrost Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript, data from 2026
Timeline
Two Brothers Start Bakkafrost
In 1968, brothers Hans and Róland Jacobsen built a small processing plant in the Faroe Islands and started catching herring in the fjords. Their idea was simple: take that herring and sell it as spiced and marinated fillets. A third brother, Martin, joined a few years later, and the family has controlled the company ever since.
From Wild Herring to Farmed Salmon
By 1979 the brothers saw that catching wild fish was a limited game, so they started farming fish — among the first in the Faroes to try it. It was a big bet that moved the company away from herring and toward the farmed salmon it is built on today.
A Restructuring Around Salmon
A collapse in the blue whiting stock threw the whole sector into financial trouble, and Bakkafrost had to reset. Regin Jacobsen and Hans and Martin Jacobsen restructured the group into a new company built around salmon farming licences in two fjords and slaughtering capacity in Glyvrar. From then on, salmon was the core.
Growing by Buying Others
Through the mid-2000s the company bought and merged with other businesses, adding farming capacity and six new fjords plus two hatcheries. It also expanded its processing factory in Glyvrar to handle the bigger volumes. Bakkafrost was no longer a small family plant; it was becoming one of the Faroes' bigger salmon players.
Biggest in the Faroes and Listed
In 2010 Bakkafrost merged with Vestlax and became the largest farming company in the Faroe Islands, with more than half of all Faroese farmed salmon. That same year it listed on the Oslo stock exchange, opening the door to international investors. The combined, fully integrated company harvested over 21,000 tonnes in 2010.
Owning the Feed
The next year Bakkafrost bought Havsbrún, a Faroese maker of fishmeal, fish oil and fish feed, for about a billion Danish kroner. This let it control the whole chain from feed to finished salmon. Havsbrún also brought majority stakes in two farming companies, widening the group further.
A Big Bet on Scotland
In 2019 Bakkafrost bought The Scottish Salmon Company, nearly doubling its size and adding Scotland as a second farming region. It looked like a bold step toward becoming a global producer. What the company did not know yet was how much trouble that Scottish business would cause.
An Airline for Fish
Bakkafrost announced it would start its own air service, buying a Boeing 767 to fly its products to the United States and beyond. That made it the first fish farming company in the world to own and run an aircraft service, and the only one owning the entire chain from roe and feed to processing, ships and transport.
Into Canned Salmon
Bakkafrost and Michael Karlsen agreed to buy Munkebo Seafood, a deal completed at the start of 2022. The move pushed the company into canned salmon and other packaged consumer products, widening what it sells beyond fresh fish. Karlsen stayed on to run it, holding a small stake.
Scotland Turns Sour
Then the trouble that had been brewing since the Scottish purchase finally hit. Salmon prices fell sharply, and biological problems and mass mortality in Scotland crushed earnings, with the Scottish farming segment posting a big loss. The share price dropped hard on a profit warning, and the turnaround was taking far longer than planned.
Record Fish, Real Costs
A trading update in early 2026 showed a record 2025 harvest, yet the Scottish disease outbreak and cullings still cost the company tens of millions in special charges. Investors began to treat Scotland's biological costs as a recurring problem rather than a one-off. The stock sank toward yearly lows, capping years of weak returns for shareholders.
Still Betting Big
Even so, Bakkafrost kept its multibillion-kroner investment plan through 2030 and its harvest targets, with the Faroese side performing at the top of the industry and a growing share of sales going to North America and Asia. The company is still betting it can become a much larger global salmon producer — if Scotland can be fixed.