Norway Salmon

Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequencesBy Naomi Selvaratnam and Ali Russell in NorwayForeign CorrespondentTopic:Food and DrinkPosted Tue 28 Jul 2026 at 4:50amTue 28 Jul 2026 at 4:50amTue 28 Jul 2026 at 4:50am, updated Tue 28 Jul 2026 at 5:30amTue 28 Jul 2026 at 5:30amTue 28 Jul 2026 at 5:30amabc.net.au/news/how-norway-s-salmon-industry-became-a-global-behemoth/106949872Link copiedShareShare articleEvery great business story begins with a problem to solve. By the mid-1980s, Norway had finally bred a type of Atlantic salmon that it could keep in pens. This was no small feat given salmon are notoriously savage. After years of unsuccessful breeding attempts resulting in the wild salmon attacking each other, farmers and scientists had created the perfect fish: a fast-growing breed of salmon that was also more docile than its wild ancestors. Now they just needed to sell it — but here was the problem: Norway's biggest untapped market, Japan, hated raw salmon. Sushi has been consumed in Japan for more than 1,000 years but the Japanese had historically preferred tuna, seeing raw salmon as parasite-ridden and unpleasant to the palette. So Norway's government came up with a plan — a 10-year marketing scheme they dubbed "Project Japan" with one goal: to sell salmon sushi to Japan. A worker on a salmon production line in Norway. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman-Smith)A major salmon cooperative had gone bust, leaving Norway with 30,000 metric tonnes of salmon and no buyer.So the government sold 5,000 metric tonnes of the fish to Japan and began wooing importers and restaurateurs at the Norwegian embassy in Tokyo to sample the product.After a decade of persistent marketing, Norway had broken through. Today, salmon sushi is a staple of Japanese cuisine, all thanks to the Norwegian government."It's like selling sand in the Sahara," says author of The New Fish, Kjetil Østli, over lunch at an Oslo restaurant."Now you can go to every street corner in big cities in the world and you buy salmon sushi," says his co-author, Simen Sætre."I mean, that has been the reason that salmon has been such a big success."Norway's rivers are home to wild Atlantic salmon. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman-Smith)Ann-Britt Bogen fishes for wild Atlantic salmon in the Gaula River in central Norway. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman-Smith)Combined with the omega 3 craze of the 1980s and 90s, the salmon obsession went global, transforming Norway's salmon farming industry into a behemoth.The salmon industry has become a symbol of Norwegian ingenuity, and a source of national pride.But in the decades since, the country that gave birth to a global salmon industry has in some ways become a victim of its own success.Foreign Correspondent travelled to Norway to see how the country is now grappling with the ecological and ethical fallout of its decades-long salmon boom.Norway's new oilNorway now supplies more than half the world's Atlantic salmon.Its industry is about 18 times the size of Tasmania's, reaching across the globe with farms in Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Chile.Few industries have transformed a country quite so quickly.In just five decades, salmon farming has reshaped Norway's coastline, with large circular pens floating in its fjords, each holding up to 200,000 salmon.It's turned remote fishing villages into industrial hubs and created tens of thousands of jobs.As an $18 billion industry, salmon is Norway's second biggest export after oil.Salmon farms now dot the coast of Norway. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman-Smith)Salmon farm nets can contain up to 200,000 salmon. (Foreign Correspondent: Tyler Freeman-Smith)Today, salmon farming companies are powerful global players, backed by a Norwegian government determined to expand the industry under the banner of sustainability."Along the coast there are some incredibly rich individuals, and they have strong lobby groups. The politicians in Norway, they want to find