Ode bets big on farmed cod
This article was featured in Eurofish Magazine 3 2025.
Over the last quarter century the cultivation of cod in Norway has been a roller coaster ride for producers and customers alike. A new wave of companies is optimistic about cultured cod’s prospects this time.
The first attempts at rearing cod in captivity in Norway date back to the 1880s when larvae were produced for restocking purposes. A hundred years later cod fry were produced for aquaculture purposes, but the industry never took off due to biological, technological, and commercial challenges. In the early 2000s, companies, possibly inspired by the spread of salmon farming, invested in cod cultivation as a way of liberating the market for this iconic species from the fluctuations of landings from capture fisheries. Production grew rapidly until about 2010 when the industry collapsed as production costs soared due to high mortalities and escapes, disease issues, an unfavourable feed conversion ratio, and the precocious onset of maturity that reduced growth rates, according to Ingrid Pettersen and coauthors in a 2023 paper.
Farmed production offers several advantages over wild catch
The global economic crisis of 2008 and increase in catches of wild cod also played a role in the collapse. The failure of cod farming gave rise to capture-based aquaculture, where wild cod were caught, transferred to net pens, and fed until the fish reached the desired size when they were harvested. The advantage of farming as well as of capture-based aquaculture is year-round production as opposed to the seasonal catches of capture fisheries. Farmed or fattened fish can thus be released on the market when the lack of wild fish pushes up prices. Moreover, farming fish enables closer control of the supply chain and better production planning. It avoids some of the quality-reducing handling associated with capture fisheries and offers regular deliveries of a uniform product, factors that are important for retail chains.
These are among the reasons that prompted Ola Kvalheim together with two partners to found Ode, a cod farming company, five years ago. The initiative combined an educational background and career in finance with his roots in a fishing family operating from Ålesund which is also where Ode is based. In the decade since Norway’s second attempt at cultivating cod fell through, significant progress has been made in better understanding cod biology as well as in production technologies. Cod spawning techniques benefited from the photoperiodic manipulation of broodstock which enabled the year-round production of eggs. The nutritional needs of cod larvae have also been studied to understand the role of enrichment of both live and formulated feeds. Moreover, research into rearing conditions such as water temperature and currents, and into nutritional deficiencies and their interaction with gene expression have reduced the incidence and intensity of deformities in juveniles, according to a 2021 paper by George Nardi and colleagues. For on-growing cod, feeds with a high protein and low fat content were developed to prevent the development of fatty liver, the organ that stores excess dietary fat in cod—unlike salmonids and small pelagics which store it in the muscle tissue. Other developments include escape-resistant cages and vaccines against some of the diseases that affect cod. As a result, today’s generations of farmed cod are stronger, healthier, and domesticated, says Ørjan Nergaard, the head of the Cod Cluster, a national network of about 100 companies involved in the cod value chain.
Fully integrated value chain built from scratch
Today two hatcheries, both members of the Cod Cluster, one operated by the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (NOFIMA) near Tromsø and the other a privately-owned company, produce cod fry for the industry. The fish are selected for various desirable traits such as disease resistance, rapid growth, and delayed sexual maturity and Ode as well as other cod farmers are among the hatcheries’ clients. The vision for Ode is to build a fully integrated value chain, encompassing hatchery, grow out, farming, slaughter, processing, sales, and marketing, that the company controls itself. This chain had to be built from scratch as it didn’t exist, says Mr Kvalheim, and over the last five years the company has succeeded in doing this. Regular weekly harvests commenced in the spring of 2023 and the company has been supplying retail customers in Europe and the US. The production cycle starts with the hatching of the eggs which happens three times a year, once naturally and twice induced by manipulating the photoperiod and the temperature. After about seventy-five days the larvae are transferred from the hatchery to the nursery where they spend the next six to nine months depending on how big they are supposed to grow in land-based facilities. Companies have different strategies in this regard and at Ode they tend to keep the fish a little longer to enable them to reach 200-300 g. The fish are vaccinated against, for example, vibriosis before they are transferred to sea cages where they spend the next 18 months during which time they reach 3-4 kg. From the time they are harvested the fish have a shelf life of about 16 days. Shipping to markets in Europe takes four to six days as does airfreighting them to customers in Asia or the US.
A well boat for the transfer of fish. The company has seven on-growing sites along the coast of the Møre og Romsdal county as well as a hatchery and a processing facility.
Cod farmers have much to learn from the farmed salmon sector
The cod industry has the advantage of following in the footsteps of a highly successful salmon cultivation sector from which it can cherry pick the best and leave the rest, whether it is related to fish health, farm management, feed conservation, or more efficient production. On the other hand, regulatory authorities have also learned from the salmon sector so cod farmers seeking new sites must provide rigorous environmental impact studies and risk assessments which tends to slow development and frustrate the farmers. However, because cod farming is still at the stage where it is spending on infrastructure and growing biomass, and investing in product development and marketing etc., its economic viability is not yet proven. This in turn means that demand for cod farming sites is low and prices are modest compared to salmon farming sites. Today, says Mr Kvalheim, there are four active farmers with production operations, and a handful of others with licences who have adopted a wait-and-see approach. Among the risks are the impacts of climate change such as warming water which can affect the fish causing more stress, slower growth, and increased vulnerability to disease. Last year saw an unseasonably warm couple of months in the summer with water temperatures above the usual range even in the northern part of the country. Cod have a preferred range of roughly 4 to 14 degrees so at Ode the traditional surface cages are equipped with a net that extends down to 40 m allowing the fish to remain at their optimal temperature irrespective of the temperature at the surface. This year the company plans to introduce fully submersible cages that can be suspended 40 to 80 m below the surface. As the fjords in this part of Norway are 400-700 m deep there is plenty of scope to lower the nets even further if necessary. This solution is another example of a collateral benefit from the salmon sector as these sinkable cages were originally developed to avoid salmon lice.
The cod is grown to three to four kilos before being harvested and processed for shipment to markets in Europe, USA or Asia.
Convenience and simplicity drive product development
But successfully growing fish is only part of the equation, it then must be marketed and sold. Here too Ode has taken a leaf from the salmon book and is looking at products such as sushi, or poke bowls, which are arguably the ultimate in convenience foods. Salads, sandwiches, and lightly smoked cod are some of the other products that Ode considers have potential. But the focus has also been on ways to quickly prepare fresh portions for busy consumers living in one or two person households with small kitchens in cities. The company’s customers are the retail chains and the Horeca sector and Mr Kvalheim sees Ode’s 12-person strong sales team helping them create successful products, so they allocate more space on their shelves and their menus to this fish. Consumers stand to benefit from a larger variety of cod products—and so will Ode.
