Welcome to BaccaratFrost Capital Market Day in Glyburier, Faroe Islands. It is a pleasure for me on behalf of BaccaratFrost to host you today. I hope you will have a good learning experience and good site visits during these days in the Faroe Islands. Baccafrost's core values specify an intent to act responsibly.
This includes thinking long term on economic, social and environmental issues. We are more committed than ever to assure that our operation is sustainable and responsible in any way. As an example of this commitment is our new biogas plant. This circular way of thinking resources will convert biological waste from our operation into clean energy, heating and natural fertilizer to the local farmers. We provide healthy food to the global market and we strive to have a sustainable and competitive production throughout the value chain.
The operation is key for Baccarat. We believe that by investing in the health of our business, our people, our salmon, the environment and the communities in which we operate, we will enable healthy living for millions of people globally. Our investment will play a significant role in Baccafrost's future business model and give opportunities for sustainable production growth, reduce biological risk and improve efficiency. It is important for us to be as efficient as possible and continually innovate. Our cost efficient value chain and premium quality has proven to create value for all our stakeholders.
The aim is moving Pacafrost into a position to be more capable to meet future opportunities and meet growing global demand for protein with healthy salmon products and at the same time create value for our customers, shareholders and society. Once again, welcome to Baccarflo's Capital Market Day. I will now hand over to our CEO, Rene Jacobsen. Thank you very much.
The pristine waters at the center of the North Atlantic Ocean with the passing Gulf Stream form the ideal ecosystem for some of the world's largest fishery resources. Here, you will find the waters surrounding the Faroe Islands in Scotland, where coastal communities have developed for generations in harmony with the natural environment. We have a proud history of salmon farming in the Faroe Islands, second to none in terms of sustainable operations and quality. We have embarked on a journey with our team in Scotland to develop the Scottish operations, deploying simple principles that have proven to be so successful in the Faroes. The Baggerfrost model is underpinned by our values and has our 5 pillars of sustainability at the heart of every decision The health and welfare of our salmon is crucial to us During its lifetime, the salmon is exposed to multiple risk factors impacting well-being We want to control as many of these factors as possible through a comprehensive integrated value chain spanning from genetic science to consumer products And now we will fundamentally transform the
value chain in Scotland We are
replacing a number of obsolete market. We are also expanding our footprint in the U. S. And we are also expanding our footprint in the U. S.
And we are with advanced water recirculation technology. This will give better and larger smolt, more resilient to the risks in the marine farming phase, which will also be shortened significantly. This will be a game changer. We have also replaced many obsolete seawater assets with modern efficient equipment benefiting both salmon and staff. Well-being of salmon is intrinsically linked to diet and we have introduced half spring feed rich on omega-three across sites.
To be able to efficiently handle biological threats such as diseases and sea lice, we are strengthening our mechanical treatment capabilities, investing new farming supply vessels and sharing best practices. The investments in Scotland will be game changing, but it will take time for the benefits to fully materialize. Healthy salmon supports a healthy business and we are well placed with the health growth of our quality salmon and larger sizes to capitalize on the strong demand for salmon in a market with limited supply growth. Driving differentiation in terms of quality and a record of growing healthy salmon has ensured continued strong performance compared to BekaFrost's competitors. A healthy salmon fed a natural diet stands out in terms of size, nutrition and quality and has lower cost.
In terms of relative profitability, our businesses in the Faroe Islands and Scotland performed at opposite ends of the scale historically. We are confident that the initiatives and investments to improve the health and welfare of the Scottish salmon will improve the financial performance in Scotland over the next 5 years. Sustainable growth is our long term strategy, and this will be achieved with improved control in freshwater stages. With the introduction of RIS, combined with reducing time and biological risk at sea, we plan to significantly increase our harvest in the coming years. Our people are our greatest assets and integral to our business.
Their passion and dedication are essential for rearing the finest quality salmon. The health and safety of our employees is paramount. We nurture a culture of continuous improvements and sharing best practice. It requires simplicity, good coordination and efficient decision making It requires integrity and common values and culture It requires 1 company Healthy salmon require a healthy environment. The world needs sustainably produced food for the growing population.
Salmon is one of the most resource efficient and healthy sources of protein. Growth is a responsibility to us, just like the stewardship of our natural environment. We are committed to the strictest globally recognized standards and accreditations. We are committed to creating value and employment in the rural communities in which our people live and work. We seek cooperation and regulatory improvements aimed at securing sustainable framework in the Faroe Islands and Scotland.
We don't just want to be the best in the salmon sector, we want to be the ones making it better for everyone.
Good morning, everyone, and a hearty welcome to Wackerfront Capital Market Day here in Ligler. It's a pleasure to have you all here. First, some practical information. There are some emergency information. In case of an emergency, we will use the same door as we entered to embark the room.
There are no emergency drills planned today. So if the alarm sounds, then it's a real alarm. And then we will have to walk out and assemble at the area outside the reception at the main building. And if you need to go to the bathroom, there will be staff at the entrance to guide you. And before I continue, I would like to introduce you to the one team of senior leaders in Baccafrost.
You can come up here to present you, to show you as a group. Over these two days that we are going to have site visits, you are going to have huge possibilities to talk with each and one of them about their responsibilities and their area and what our strategy needs from all of them and all of the different areas in the value chain in Baccafrost. And there will be plenty of opportunities for smaller talks and presentation. Thank you very much. This main presentation will be held by myself, Chief Financial Officer, Agne de Jacobsen Managing Director of the Scottish Shaman Company, Ian Leister and Group Sales Director, Simon Jakobsen and Group Sustainability Director, Tardis Polson.
Other presentations will be held on sites of the different responsible persons during the day and tomorrow. By the end of the presentation, there will be a Q and A session where you will be getting the possibility to ask to this main presentation. And also, audience streamlining are have the possibility to mail questions to cmdpakkershot.com, cmdpackershot.com, and that will be showed on the screen at the end of the presentation. I hope that you will have a good and informative experience with good site visits these 2 days. We really look forward to it after this time of only seeing each other on screens.
So it's a pleasure for us to have you here and together with our senior leadership team to be able to walk you through our value chain and get first hand discussions about what these plans means for all of us and what we need to execute. You will see our land based farm operation today in Strand. You will see Hafsbrunn, our fishmeal oil and feed division. And tomorrow, we will visit our biogas site, Farska, and we will have site visits and the farming division in Gulin with Roland. Also, after the presentation, we will walk through the processing plant here in Glyburard and have ability to go also on board on Anssavaca at the Keysight.
Healthy salmon is fundamental for our operations. A healthy salmon is robust, it's strong and it thrives in environment with different kinds of natural biological threats. In order to create optimal circumstances, we need to farm smart. We must use our highly paid experience through the years to ensure a good environmental surroundings where the threats are mitigated. The balance is crucial in order to control the threats.
Infectious diseases are illnesses caused by different pathogens, such as bacterias and viruses, which can be found in nature. Prevention and early detection with efficient closed processing systems has been one of the key in our strategy. A lot is requested in order to meet these simple requirements and sometimes it might be complicated as we have realized also with COVID-nineteen. Separate generations and following periods have been crucial to ensure a good environment. 1 generation, 1 summer, 1 operator, 1 fjord is crucial.
The graphical picture here behind me shows that we are in we want to be in a small green area where there is a balance between a good controlled environment, biology and a healthy salmon. Over the last couple of years, backeverst have improved critical KPIs, which are the indicators for healthy salmon. The yield per smalt have been constantly better than for our peers. Also, biological feed conversion rate has been developing very positively, even more even better in 2021 demonstrated on this graph. This is critical both for the environment and to the competitive position of our company, but it's also an indicator about fish that thrives and that they are in good balance with nature.
Other KPIs such as size of fish, no use of antibiotics are also very important in our strategy. However, all changes impose threats, and we need to improve and continue our journey with changes. The truck record though is excellent in our Faroeys operations. We have seen a high correlation between the actions that the first couple of years improved our sustainable operations and improving further KPIs. We have embarked on a journey now to structurally strengthen our assets and operations in Scotland.
The allocation in our 5 years plan is broadly in line with our original plan, although we think it's necessary to speed up the process a bit to build state of the art hatcheries in order to achieve the benefits. 1 of the fundamental drivers for BAKER FROST is gain control in value chain. When we updated our strategy in the mid-90s, one of our focuses was on competitive advantage and differentiation. The value chain has been our focus since then. We had already been fish farmers for a long time and saw huge possibilities in improving the relative cost position and create differentiation.
In the 1990s and 00s, our focus was mainly on seawater practices. This focus has continued and is still very important to drive change and improve operations. The focus on small quality and size started really around 10 years ago and was already in focus in our 1st 5 years investment plan in 2013. This area is still very important and will over the next 5 years be very much in focus with the experience that we have had over the last 10 years. FEED has historically been an important part of optimization of growth and quality.
And after the acquisition of Hafstrand back in 2011, Baccafrost had a significant competitive advantage to focus on high quality, taste and differentiation. This focus and strategy will continue as we will in the next 5 year investment program allocate significant funds to update the capacity and flexibility of our operations in our feed houseplum. The new focus area was added back in 2016 when Baccafrost decided to take responsibility to the Faroe's salmon strain. This has been an important driver of the operations in the Faroe salmon farming since 1978. And in an agreement between the Faroe's government, Fisk Airlink and ourselves, Bakkerfest got the responsibility and ownership to the Faroe salmon strain in effect from 2021.
We see significant potential in this area and will over the next 5 years continue to invest in research and development in genetics and will be self sufficient with Onex. Our operation in Scotland has a different background. We have far less integrated value chain and several weak elements. We will focus to improve this and learn from our experience the last 25 years. We will improve our value chain in Scotland in line with the 1 company strategy and focus on relative cost position and improve the agility in the value chain and differentiation.
We will improve the disadvantages from lack of flexibility and reduce the risk in the operation. After taking control in Scotland in December 'nineteen, we have started the journey to align our operations. The crew are on board, The course is set, and we are already in the process to add new skills, tools and improved capabilities. We will significantly lift the ability of our value chain and improve our competitive position during this journey that we have just started. The Broadstock program is a central part of our farming strategy.
Our priority is to select the best fish to breed future generations of salmon. Newest technology, genetic selection with DNA markers are used to prioritize and drive the strain forward. The breeding program ensures a continued improvement and secures better control, higher quality and fish welfare and more predictable operations. The selection has a high focus on robustness, health and adapting to local environmental changes. Our strong focus is also on quality and taste of the product.
The Brutstock program is 1 central driver to competitive advantage and differentiation. We believe that the position with own supply of eggs to our hatcheries is crucial to have a high security on supply. With the new Brudstock facility we currently built in Skalawik, Baccafrost will be self sufficient with X in 2024. The capacity in Skalarvik will, over the next 5 years, be extended to 70,000,000 eggs of high quality with the best genetic selection. One summer in the sea will reduce the risk in the farming operations.
The seawater phase is the most risky part of the operation. To mitigate the risk of our operations, we have over the past 10 years in the Faroe Islands invested heavily in increased capacity. We have raised the size and the quality of the smalt. The results are showing quite good progresses with larger and higher weight with larger smalt and high quality smalt. Our aim is to raise all our smalt to 500 gram before transfer to seawater.
However, changes of operation causes new areas of risks and threats. And to produce a large or small, there are a number of areas where we need to mitigate risks and have high focus. The result of this change means that we have cut the time in the sea phase from 18 to 12 months, and this time has been moved to freshwater. The result is clear. With large or small, we see better KPI development in general and better utilization of farming licenses as farming sites and locks are the constraint in the resource globally.
The first fish from marine sites that originated from the new hatchery in Strand were harvested in September 2020. And since then, we have harvested the first batch that was produced in the new facility in Strand. The results are quite good. The fish were the first batch was transferred in or the first pens were transferred to Gotheburg in August the 19th August 2019 at an average weight of 2 18 gram, 2.18. And it was they were harvested on the 28th October 2020 at 6.3 kilos, a TGC of 3.3, a feed conversion rate of 0.99.
That means that we used less than 1 kilo of feed to produce 1 kilo of salmon. Only 14 months in the sea with a fantastic KPI. This year, we are doubling the size of the smalt from Strand. And in average also from Baccarforest, we expect to reach an average weight of 400 grams in average for the for all transferred smalt. And next year, the gold is 500.
Every change creates new challenges and to manage this in a good way and to give the expected output, it has been crucial to reach a flexible approach to the organization and production planning. It's clear that a high quality small takes a lot of understanding of the biology and to make sure that the requirements of a healthy fish is met in all aspects. The Stron facility has a yearly production capacity of around 4,000 tons and has now been in operation for 2 years. In our investment plan for the next 5 years, we prioritize to be self sufficient with large smalt, high quality smalt, both in the Faroe Islands and in Scotland. We have a comprehensive experience in building these complex facilities and feel this to be an important driver to continue our competitive position in the industry.
Our capacity increases over the next 5 years in the Faroe Islands from 6 to 12,000 tonnes. And in Scotland, we are going to 15 fold our capacity in hatcheries over the next 5 years from 600 metric tonne up to 9,000 metric tonne. On your visit, on Strand later today, you will have presentations from Rune Olsson, Head of Plustock and Freshwater in Faroes and Dusan Mungin, which is Head of Plustock and Freshwater in Scotland. They will give further explanations, and you can ask all the questions you might have. FEED is crucial and very important for our operation.
As you know, feed
are more than 50% of all costs in salmon farming, and they are feeds a driver for differentiation on the high quality salmon. Our strategy and focus over the last 10 years has been to continue the focus on high quality feed and pharma healthy high quality salmon. Our main our marine raw materials are locally sourced and produced in house. We believe there are strong ties between diets and fish health. Our latest generation in Focalafjord produced 9,139 tonnes harvested out earlier this year with a feed conversion rate of 1.00, meaning that we used exactly 1 kilo of feed to produce 1 kilo of salmon.
Our accumulated latest 70,000 ton production in Bakersfield Faroe Islands has obtained an average biological feed conversion rate of 1.04, 1040 gram of feed to produce 1 kilo of salmon, which probably is the lowest in the industry for such a big volume. Our ability to utilize natural local raw materials on diets with marine ingredient basket, fully transparent back to actually sourced raw materials puts us into a unique position in the industry. As our feed conversion ratio is extremely low and salmon has a very high yield to eatable product, we can demonstrate that our value chain is increasing eatable fish volume significantly despite using marine diets. We must also remember that our high marine profile has a positive impact on sustainability KPIs like freshwater use, agribal land use, CO2 emission, etcetera. We will have further dive into that later.
In the future, there are huge untapped potential in utilizing mesopelagic sources as raw materials. You will have a lot of ability to talk much more in details with Adeliers and Managing Director of Hafsproon and his team later today, where you can have a lot of different questions. Over the last 6 over the last 8 years, Baggerfrost have invested heavily in our value chain. The graph shows that the biggest investments have been in the marine area, and you're going to meet our marine team later today and tomorrow where you can ask a lot of questions. We have with this focus and priority created a fantastic fundamental for our operations.
And the aim in all these investments was to reduce the risk, improve the efficiency and create sustainable growth. We have, together with our suppliers, developed new technology, advanced feeding systems and digitalization. This has been crucial in creating the best performing operations. The capacity and agility of the operation has been increasing over the years and improved constantly. And it creates a good fundamental for continuous improvement of our operations over the next years to come.
Our hatchery capacity has increased 5x during this period from 1,000 to 5,000 tonnes. And in the years 2015 2016, we built this processing facility next to this building in Glyburier and the Hansa Baca Live Fish carrier, which is crucial to improve efficiency and capacity and gave new possibilities. We opened 1 factory and closed 7. The yearly savings were around €60,000,000 to €90,000,000 corresponding to €1,000,000 to €1.5 per kilo, and the capacity increased from 50,000 to around 80,000 tonne. The investment in farming service vessels has strengthened our ability to derisk the operation and increase the agility in various risk areas.
Over the next 5 years, we are going to use the know how in our organization to replicate the successful expansion, both in the Faroe Islands and in Scotland. We are going to expand our capacity through the value chain in order to reach minimum capacity of 180,000 tonnes through the whole value chain. Farming of salmon requires highly skilled personnel committed to achieve good results and putting a lot of efforts in this operation. The combination of various skills like marine operators, biologists, veterinarians, IT developers, navigators and engineers, just to mention a few of the skills needed. The systems must be an integrated and short decision lines as things move fast and the consequences are big.
The changes in resources on different systems in our industry has been huge over the last 10 years. We have a fantastic group of committed staff and management with long and great experience and high commitment. However, the development of new technologies and solutions and digitalization of the operation is crucial to get the KPIs to the next level. In house research and development and sharing knowledge is key to achieve these results. The constant drive with new results, analysis and change is a part of this process.
The structure of summer farming in the Faroe Islands is very much a result of learning from the Isaac catastrophe back in 1999 to 2003. At this time, the Faroeysama farming industry had been in operation for around 20 years. Already, in this period, the number of operators had decreased from the peak in 1990 of 'sixty 5 to 28 in 2,001. There were many farmers in Nitschfjord and no following requests of sites. Harvesting of fish was an open systems.
When viruses hit us in 'ninety nine, it developed through most of fish farms within the next 4 years. We implemented the Faroe's business system in 2023 2,003, one operator in each fjord, only 1 generation of fish, following periods between generations, close systems for harvesting of fish and a lot of other things. But one of the most important are probably early warning of pathogens, early detections of pathogens and early intervention to prevent spreading, just like we have learned so much about now with COVID-nineteen. We have over the last 20 years found HPR serovirus constantly in the environment, but this is harmless to our salmon when we apply our early warning system. In all cases, detection and investigation strategy have prevented any disease and further spread of viruses.
As the world has been exposed to COVID-nineteen in the last couple of years, we have seen many similarities between the strategy of combating virus in salmon farming and the COVID-nineteen. Early warning, the CPR results, which actually in the Faroe Islands originated from the salmon strategy and actually the same laboratory was used in order to speed this up and being able to execute. We have not used any antibiotics in the Faroe salmon operation for the last 2 decades. Baccafrost acquired the Scottish salmon company by end of 'nineteen, and last year in 2020 was then the 1st year of control. 1.5 years have passed.
COVID-nineteen has hampered us somewhat, but we have started a journey together with our Scottish colleagues. It's important to gain control on the value chain and to improve control on biology. We see some areas in Scotland which are more challenging, generally tougher biology and reduced flexibility to optimize site locations. Many sites are quite small and difficult to get a competitive operation. We will focus on this area and have a dialogue with authorities about how these issues can be addressed in order to increase the competitiveness of our operation.
We have identified areas where we can focus on change. We have good cooperation with our neighbors and we'll focus on good cooperation in areas where we are exposed to close contact. We have already done site swaps in one area and will prioritize doing site swaps in other areas. We have started increasing investments in the value chain in Scotland. We see huge possibility to improve and strengthen our operations.
In the Faroes, we believe it's crucial to be self sufficient with high quality large malt and see a huge possibility to improve this also in Scotland. Over the next 5 years, we will 15 fold the capacity in Scotland and use the same technology as we have been building in the Faroes over the last 10 years and that we are going to demonstrate to you today. I'm confident that the experience we have had over the last couple of years will help us to ramp up speed of the transformation needed, And the learnings will help us to do more things right from the beginning than we did here in Faroes. The operation in Scotland is not competitive on cost. Most important KPIs are not within the level we want them to be.
This leads to high cost in operation and inefficient operation. In the early part, there seemed to be very little difference for the 1st 12 months, but then we see challenges. From the graph we see below, we see a significant variation in yield per smalt, where the Scottish operation is below 3 and the Faroe is above 4. Also in the feed conversion rate, we see a significant difference. The growth pattern shows that the growth is falling behind at some point.
It's clear that a high quality smalt is needed to create a healthy sustainable business. High quality and latest technology is needed to make the operation competitive and flexible to the various risks. Neither of these 2 have been present in Scotland. We will over the next years massively invest in structural change of the operation to manage the operation more agile. I am sure that we will see the same significant improvements in the operation as we invest into these fundamental criterias and get them correct over the next coming years to produce a healthy salmon.
Now I'm pleased to welcome Ian Leister, Managing Director of Our Scottish Operation, to present the Scottish operation and the plan for the next 5 years. Iain?
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, And very glad to be able to meet you in person and obviously take you through our journey that we're about to embark on, although we have started many things in the background. Healthy salmon is fundamental to improve performance in our Scottish operations. In its near history, we've had some good years benefited by good environmental conditions and good market conditions. What the COVID impact, the indirect impact of COVID did to our business was laid bare the weaknesses of our value chain.
That led to our resources being overwhelmed and environmental and biological factors overtaking our ability to manage those. So that becomes a fundamental issue that we need to resolve in our journey moving forward.
Sorry, this.
The next one. So, we just wanted to talk through some of the risks that we face. And these are environmental risks. They're inherent everywhere in Scotland. So there are a number of factors around predation, seals, sea lice, plankton and various viruses and other bacterial diseases in the natural environment.
And where we have been historically is with older obsolete and insufficient resources. So I've included a visual representation of 1 of our hatcheries. So this hatchery here, it's going through a process of closure. It's 30 years old. It's broadly the same technology that was built 30 years ago.
And that was a factor of some of the assets that we had at our disposal. In addition, we had limited vessel capacity and other factors around our ability to produce smalt to manage the cycle. So the reality of our operation is the production of relatively poor quality small smalt and then insufficient resources in the marine environment to manage risk. That's our history. So since acquisition, we haven't sat back and let the environmental and market conditions overtake us.
So we've been actively working in the background to improve the foundations of our business. So we've implemented multiple improvements across our operations and across our practices. So some of the examples are fundamental. We've linked into this the strength of the group's value chain. We now have introduced Hasbroom Feed to almost all sites and as new sites are stocked, they will move to Hasbroom Feed.
We operate as one team. We're transferring knowledge between both parts of the business to ensure that we challenge and implement best practice. We've moved on to single platforms and methods of working and recording and analyzing data, which helps us to understand our business and the factors that affect it. And we've also made multiple improvements to our operational business in terms of investments. We've introduced a new and enhanced clean efficient RAS program that is now rolling out on every new stocking.
We've upgraded feed systems across the board. We can now feed all our sites remotely. We've also improved aeration at all risk sites, again to help control biological factors and also included oxygenation as part of crowding for treatments. And they're just some of the things that we have done. That has started out to have a positive impact on some of our operational KPIs.
So moving forward, and we're in the middle of the next step of our development in terms of resource and capabilities. So last year, we introduced a freshwater treatment vessel that is now 100% dedicated to treatment of fish. There's a visual representation in the top right of where we have a situation where there's increasing mortality, impact on appetite, etcetera. What the intervention of fresh water can do in that scenario. And we've seen from multiple interventions that we can get an almost immediate increase in appetite by up to 14% and a reduction in mortality by 68%.
So fresh water resources are fundamental and they're proving to be extremely beneficial in our operation. Again, on the top right, the Bakken S, which I think we will sail past at some point tomorrow maybe. So the Bakken S is undergoing final fit out and commissioning and will set sail for Scotland in the coming days, week. And it will be its permanent base. This fundamentally transforms our capacity, our capability, but also brings with it the latest technology of gentle treatment for lice.
So these 2 start to address the balance and swing this more towards being in control of our environment and the factors that impact our business. So the game changer, large smalt. So the top right on our scales, this is a visual representation of real mortality over our current 22 month cycle in the marine environment. And through that cycle, there's a cumulative effect of risk on our fish. And you can see from a biomass impact that that's quite significant as the fish grow and through the end of the cycle.
Moving to large smalt and reducing that cycle to between 12 13 months fundamentally transforms our operation. It transforms the health of our fish and it transforms survivability. And the reduction in mortality is as high as 70%, which then also fundamentally changes our KPIs and our cost performance. It's the foundation of our moving forward into being a healthy business. So we've already introduced the concept of 1 summer.
So this is a visual representation of our current cycle and then our new cycle. So we move a proportion of our production into a controlled stable environment within RAS and fundamentally lower the impact that the marine environment can have on our fish. But we also introduce healthier, larger, robust fish into that environment. So one summer, one lock, one operator, one generation. It's fundamental to our business.
It's fundamental to our performance. And it shifts the balance of risk where we can manage risk. And then what this also does is we have a very favorable temperature profile in Scotland, which with the right health and the right management of those risks is extremely beneficial for growth. And that's what we're trying to access. But we're not an insular business.
We work within an environment. We work within communities. We work within a region and we work alongside competitors and other companies. So we have an impact on those. So our strategy is holistic.
It involves working together on matters that affect the industry where that's beneficial, animal welfare. We're a major part of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organization where the key major players in salmon farming in Scotland. We work together to better the industry. We're also working alongside governmental regulators and have direct contact. And the Scottish government are now undertaking a review to look at how salmon farming is regulated and managed in Scotland and we're an active part of that.
So the fundamental for us moving forward is our healthy salmon strategy, it's holistic, it's driving change in every area of our business, it's enhanced by our engagement with stakeholders and the health of our fish is at its heart. And I look forward to taking you through the strategy in a bit more depth this afternoon. Thank you.
Thank you, Jan. I have been a couple of times in Skirtland since the acquisition despite it has been tough. Ott, Leasing, who took the start and the management down there, he has been there much more frequently. And we see a very dedicated staff in Scotland. They are highly experienced.
The biggest issue we see is that there is a huge lack of investment in the operation. So we need to support that. You are going to have the ability later today to talk to David Taylor, which is Head of the Marine North and Ian McIntyre, which is Head of South. So it's just like in the Faroes. In the Faroes, we also have West and North, West with Otwald Olsen and North with Jan Perskoes.
So it's the same structures. We have 2, so we can have some small competition. So we will you will be able to talk to all of them and also Dave Cockrell, the Head of Biology Veterinarians, which has been so all of them have more than 20 years experience. It's a vast experience, but we need to make sure that the resources are there, and that's what we are doing now. We have a program for comprehensive improvements in Scotland to back up and to make sure that we can utilize the resource and the capacity that we have that we see.
We have prioritized our actions. The focus will be to improve animal welfare, which we believe is the driver for a healthy business. And we are quite committed. We are very committed to do this. We have a competitive organization to execute the program and we will focus on sharing best practice, knowledge, both ways in the organization.
When it comes to investments on building high class operations with new technology, we are confident that we can replicate the success with the investments in technology. Some effects will show effect some effects will be seen earlier than others, like for example, the system's best practice, natural feed, etcetera, where there are others that will have more gradual improvements like for example, genetic program. From large and small, we expect to see some gradual improvements from 2024 with large and smalls. So a bit of a summary of the healthy salmon focus for Baccafrost. We will continue to strengthen performance in the Faroe Islands and transform improvements of main KPIs in Scotland, especially through the conversion to 500 grams malt.
We will aim to see biological FCR in the Faroes below 1.05 and in Scotland between 1.10. We will focus on survival rate above 94% in Faroes and above 92% in Scotland. We aim to achieve above 4.1 kilo yield per smalt for the group, and this is for the 5 years. You're not speaking after 5 years, then of course, it will be an updated target. The development of solid integration in the value chain for our Scottish operation Scottish operation will aim to increase the degree of control in own operations, implement best practices, successfully execute the comprehensive investment program.
And for the beginning, of course, the biggest KPI is to get the larger and healthier, higher quality smalt into the sea as soon as possible. And contribute to industry action as one. These are the main KPIs for a healthy salmon for this 5 years period. There are, of course, a lot of other milestones, which we have gone through, which will be part of our healthy living program and report. So now, Hakan Jakobsen, Chief Financial Officer, will take us through the healthy business update.
Wagner? Thank you, Rain.
That is evident with our operation in Scotland, how much healthy business is dependent on having healthy salmon. In the Faroes, Baggerfrost has a strong record of good margins, partly due to our efficient operation, but also due to our good fish health. Our ability to improve the margins in Scotland are very much dependent on our ability to also increase fish health in Scotland. This is not no surprise for us. We knew when we acquired The Scottish Shaman Company that this was a heavily underinvested company.
We also knew that the main issues were linked to the core operation, the farming operation. And we have now a robust plan in which we will not only improve the margin, but it will also help us grow sustainably in the years to come. What we also knew when we acquired the company was that the valuation of salmon farming companies are very much tied or linked to the margins that they are able to deliver. And with the plans that we will go through today, we expect to improve our margins significantly in Scotland and hereby also increasing the value of the assets that we acquired 2 years ago. So how are our margins?
If we compare ourselves to or if we compare our operations in the Faroe Islands in Scotland, we are at opposite ends of scale. Despite this year being last year being exceptional due to the market disruption that COVID has caused, we had healthy margins in the Faroes at NOK 16.65 per kilo. In comparison to that, we achieved margins of minus NOK0.99 in Scotland. And even if the price achievements in Scotland is better than the average Norwegian levels, last year, it was still weaker than the price achievements that we had in the Faroes. But the biggest issue is not the price achievement.
The biggest issues are the costs of the farming. Cost per kilo at box at processing plant were around 50% higher in Scotland than in the Faroes and than the Norwegian average costs. And here we need to remember also that if you look at the cost in the Faroe Islands last year, they were actually exceptionally high due to significant mortalities that we had last year. We had a very heavy storm that hit us hard last year in the Faroes. But also when we recalculate or compare with Norwegian levels, we also need to take in account the currency effects that we had last year.
There was a very weak Norwegian krona last year. But despite of that, the costs in Scotland were 50% higher. So if we dig deeper into our farming costs, we see that in 2020, our Faroeys operation had lower costs for feed and depreciations than the average Norwegian costs. However, as mentioned before, the currency effect also has a role to play here, so that increases our relative cost to Norwegian companies last year. In Scotland, our farming costs were higher in all categories, except depreciations.
And as Ian has told us, we have started the transformation of the operation, And we can already see improvements from the initiatives that we have executed so far in our main farming KPIs. But it takes some time before we see the effect of that also materializing in the margins. Now that we have touched upon the farming costs, we could move on to the other main component of the margin, the price achievement. And to tell you all about that, I present to you our group's Sales Director, Svein Jacobsen.
Yes. I will take you through some few slides about our price achievement, differentiating factors and price achievements. To achieve the price, a premium price, the best price we possible price for our salmon, our strategy is to farm or to keep a high average harvest rate. Large salmon is short in supply and therefore, we generally do see a premium paid for Bigasan. We will dig a little bit deeper into that in a few minutes.
Secondly, it's quite important for us to focus on country of origin. We do see that some origins or some segments, some markets are willing to pay extra for Faroes and Scottish Shaman, seeing Faroe Islands and Scotland as niche origins. Examples of that could be China paying extra for Faroeese salmon and U. S. Market as well, where Baccarat has a very strong marketplace.
We do see we did see that as well part of this year with Scottish salmon when they were stable with big salmon in the market. The feed for our salmon is quite important that we have in house feed. Nutrition is important. We need a healthy salmon to serve our customer a healthy product. And by having our own feed production, creating our own recipes, it's the best way of securing our customer a good product.
Sustainability claims are more important now than ever. Therefore, it's vital to keep a high control of the value chain, I would say, a full control of the value chain and food safety standards and disability to enter the high end markets. It's important to have certifications in place. So we do have in Scotland and the Ferros global GAP certifications. We in the Ferros, all our farmers are ASC certified, while in Scotland, they are BAP certified.
We do have FLOG certifications in Speros, a certification that tells consumers that our products are non GMO or GMO free. We do in Scotland have a La Bruges certification, which gives us a premium price in France and the Scottish operation is as well SPCA certified. That's mainly for the U. K. Retail business.
But without satisfied customers, it's impossible to obtain a price premium. Therefore, we put maximum effort into customer service, and we want to go that extra mile to give best service together with the best salmon. Our track records showing that larger fish obtain a price premium, Although there might be some exceptions like some short term exceptions part of 2020 shown that due to some difficulties in the market with the transportations, not enough of airplane capacity, we could see that the smaller fish part of the year had a higher price than bigger salmon. But in general, large fish has a premium price. For 2020, we could see that Pac Afro Ferros, as Hakuna mentioned just some few minutes ago, the Pac Afro had a price above NOK60, while Scottish salmon was just slightly below NOK60.
But we do see here that the premium we are obtaining in the ferros is basically based on the high average weight we do have. On top of that, we get a brand premium, but we have then the red spot there is a deduction for some downgraded fish, and we will have that then our realized price. Look, comparing that with the Scottish Rite, we could see that we have a down negative premium for our low average weight or low mean weight. But we have a big premium, brand premium and we have negative premium again on downgrades. Normally, we would see that the price of salmon increase with the size of the salmon.
And again, part of 20.20 could be an exception. That means that in Scotland, we have to plan a higher our business plan is to have a higher mean rate than we have had in the past. And we do see that Scotland now is starting to benefit from in house feed with, for example, the TGC we do see now. By nature, salmon is a healthy product, rich in vitamin D and omega-three. We do see that the PacRapha7, both in Ferros and Scotland, have a very is very rich in vitamin D, about 8 microgram by 100 gram, which is high compared with the daily intake needed or advised.
Tordis Polson will mention more about that in her presentation, Noel. And the omega-three, omega-six ratio for bakar for salmon is very good. We are now we will now start to aligning our marketing approach. So far, all Faroe salmon has been called Baccafrost salmon. We will change that to by Baccafrost.
So our business to business products will be Baccafrost. We will have a new consumer brand, which is called Heinland, that will be called Heinland by Baccafrost. We will have a luxury brand called Eitan Islands by Baccafrost. And we will do the same in Scotland. In Scotland, we will have native Hebrigen.
If you remember from Ryan's slide, native Hebrigen is our own strain of salmon in Scotland. That will be a luxury brand. And again by Baccafrost. Lochlander is a luxury brand, business to consumer by Baccafrost. And our business to business volume salmon in Scotland is still a Scottish salmon company by Baccafrost.
So it will be quite visible in the market that we are focusing on by Baccafrost all the way through. Flexibility is quite important for us to obtain the best price. We have seen in the ferros that it has been a huge advantage for us to be flexible with our VIP capacity. We had some years ago, 2018, a very low share of WAP products, while in 2020 when the pandemic hit us, it was quite important for us that we could scale up and we had 47% of our products of our hog salmon entered into our WAP factory. While in Scotland, we are not that flexible, in 2020, we had 15% of our fresh hog salmon into our WAP factory, and we could not scale up.
So it is quite important for us that we will increase that capacity in the near future. So we will see most likely see the Scottish numbers change coming years. So to help them to obtain to support our price the best price, the price premium, it is important for us to be flexible in all areas as well in the production area.
Thank you, Svein. So how is the market outlook looking forward? According to the latest estimates from Cantali, the supply outlook will be tight for the next years until 2025, with an annual growth of around 4%. Historical data show us, if we look at supply and price elasticity, that the market seems to be in a balance with an annual growth of 6% to 7%. So that indicates to us that we will have relatively strong solenoid prices going forward.
It's also worth noting from the Cantale numbers that at least until 2025, the main source of the growth comes from traditional farming. Very little volumes is expected to come from new farming technologies like offshore and land based farming. With the investments that I will go through in a moment, we expect to achieve sustainable growth of more than 40% over the coming 5 years. In 2026, we expect to harvest 150,000 tonne, 100,000 tonne out of the Faroes and 50,000 tonne in Scotland. This equals an compounded average growth rate of around 7% in total, 9% in the Ferros, where we finally now begin to see the benefits from our advanced stage in our launch mode strategy and all the investments that we have made over the past years.
For us, this is a cost efficient way to achieve sustainable growth, utilizing the existing licenses and having shorter production cycles in the marine environment. In Scotland, the growth the coming 5 years will be lower, around 5%. Here, our main focus is on improving the operation, which also as a side effect will grow volumes as fish gets healthier and welfare is improved. And we will also be able to mitigate many of the risks that Ian told us about earlier. And the side effects as a side effect, we will see also growth coming from that.
Later in 2025 or 2020 6, we will also really begin to see the effects of largest malts in Scotland, also in harvest volumes. Please note also that in these numbers that we present here on our growth, we don't do not include any volumes coming from new investments in offshore technologies or other new farming technologies. But as you probably are fully aware of, we have been talking about the potential of offshore farming here in the Faroes. For the past 5 or 6 years, we have been following the development of new farming technologies closely, such as offshore. And we have kept an eye on the trials that have been going on with offshore and semi offshore projects in Norway and in other places.
And we have also been working on our own offshore designs. But in contrast to Norway, there is no access to subsidized trials of new technologies in the Faroes. As we could carry as we then would carry all the risk of such an investment on ourselves, we need to be very, very confident in the technology before we embark on any adventures in offshore. With the CapEx required for investments in technologies like offshore and also pure land based operation for that matter, The CapEx is very high, as illustrated on the right side of the graph here on the slide. We see CapEx levels ranging between CHF1.3 billion CHF2 billion, depending on whether it's offshore or land based farming we are talking about.
And this is quite comparable to go out and buy the same production license in Norway. 10,000 ton is what we have used for these calculations. We have been quite open about our interest in offshore and also our strong belief that it's viable to perform offshore farming here in the Faroes. And in November, we have we applied for an offshore license. We have not received that yet, but we have allocated funds in our CapEx program for marine site development, which could include offshore, but it could also be other technologies.
There is no obvious benefit for us being 1st mover in this field and in technologies that have not yet proven to be viable on a broader scale. But we prepare ourselves as much as we can. We learn from other projects going on with new technologies and are keen on also exploring other perhaps more cost efficient growth opportunities with new technologies. Rehan has an interesting deep dive presentation later today, where he will be talking more about the different kinds of technologies that could be relevant in the Faroes and also offshore. As illustrated in the middle of this figure, which depicts both the CapEx and also the margins and the marginal return, Our current strategy of using existing licenses, having larger smalls is a very efficient strategy.
And that strategy is not fully exploited yet. So we need to continue growing with this option or this strategy as long as we can, while we also prepare for the next stage. Therefore, if we look at the investment plan for the coming 5 years, investment in large hatcheries to produce 500 gram constitute a significant portion of the total investments. In the Faroes, we will continue to expand our hatcheries at Leveradal at North Hofter and also with our new hatchery, which we will construct in Onarvik. And this will enable us to produce more than 23,000,000 smolts of 500 gram in 2026.
In Scotland, we have started the expansion of the Applecross Hatchery, and we intend to make it even bigger than we intended, more or less replicating the scale that we will see later today at Strand. We also intend to build another hatchery of a similar size. And those 2 will give us the production capacity to produce 18,000,000 smolts in 2026, of an average weight of 500 gram. And later in the 5 year investment plan, we will start constructing a 3rd hatchery in Scotland, which will be important to achieve further growth. Dusan and Ian will have deep dive presentations, both on the smalt and also on the business plan for Scotland, and you will hear me more about these plans in those presentations.
Referring back to Simon's presentation about our flexibility in Scotland, we are also investing in a large processing plant in Scotland, much like this factory here at the infrastructure and the processes and so on in one place is a huge benefit. And Donald will tell you more about that later in this afternoon. Besides that, our investment plan include finalizing our Broodstock facility at Skalawake in the Faroes to be able to ramp up the production of our own eggs based on the Faroes train that we have the ownership We will also invest in higher treatment capacity for Scotland, and we will expand the feed capacity at Hafsbergen. And next summer, we will have a new well boat in our fleet, a 7,000 cubic meter well boat, which will give us added flexibility here in the Faroes as well. And then there are the investments in the marine site development in Scotland and also in the Faroes that I mentioned before, it could involve new farming technologies such as offshore.
So in total, this is an investment plan of DKK 6,200,000,000. And in order to maximize the effects of it, we have chosen to fast forward the transformation and front load the investment plan. And with the investment plan, we will totally transform the business in Scotland. And we will ensure that we will have a sustainable growth and a total production of 150,000 tonne in 2026. But just as we did in the Faroes when we announced previous investment plans, we are building up for a higher synchronization point in regards to capacity when we look across our value chain.
So with our new 5 year investment plan, we are moving the synchronization points in the value chain. In our first 5 year plan that we made in 2013, we were aiming for a synchronization point at an annual production of 66,000 tonne. When we revised that investment plan in 2018, that was increased to 100,000 tonne across the value chain. And now with this investment plan, we are moving that upwards to 180,000 tonne. In addition to that, we will also, by these investments, have excess capacity in some parts of the value chain.
For instance, extra vessel capacity, both for transportation and also for treatment, which are important because it gives us flexibility in regards both biological issues, but also in regards to market fluctuations that we can either take advantage of or avoid depending on which way it moves. It also gives us improved capabilities to mitigate biological risks. And we are preparing for future growth with this. For instance, the investments in Habsburg, which Ott Eliasen will tell you much more about later this day, we are doing those investments in a way where we, with a smaller minor a smaller additional investment, can increase the feed capacity up to what equates to an annual harvest of around 300,000 ton. So to conclude on our healthy business.
Over the next 5 year, we will invest DKK6.2 billion in our value chain, in the Faroes and in Scotland. We plan to maintain our leadership on margins in the Faroes. And we target to have an industry leading margin in Scotland. We plan to grow our annual harvest sustainably by 40% up to 150,000 tonne in 2026. And at the same time, we are building capacity across the value chain to be able to produce 180,000 tonne.
And we will also explore further organic growth opportunities, where we also focus on new farming technologies. And with that, I
will leave it over to you. Krey? Thank you very much, Agne. Doing healthy salmon and healthy business, we need a competent and healthy management and healthy staff, healthy people. And health and safety is core of our business.
We have developed clear employee safety plans with focus not only on the safety of our people, but also proactive health monitoring and specific focus on managing COVID-nineteen and the impact COVID has had on mental well-being of our people. Health and safety is at every Board meeting, the start of the meeting, and reports from all operations are coming up to the Board. We maintain the strength of our safety culture through training, improving awareness by ensuring health and safety being an important part of operational focus and meetings. New safety management systems are being implemented this year. Share of best practices are being implemented.
The health and safety team supports site managers, especially on site visits with audits and also to do safety systems and accreditation. In Scotland, we see together with our Good Catch program that this has led to a great improvement of our KPIs and reduction on lost time. In 2021, we prepared the business for the ISO 45,001 certification. The future of BaccaratFrost will focus on aligning into our 1 company strategy. The success and timing is dependent on many factors.
We focus on continuous improvement and change, and in order to achieve results, a clear management is crucial. The management is united in the vision and mission for the company and aligned in our goals with a strategy for sustainable growth supported by clear goals. One culture with people at its heart to ensure synergies can be maximized. The culture in our Faroeys and Scottish operations fits well together with focus on origin, pride and transparency. We want to drive the culture together to increase the drive and from the market into our operations.
Our values are the same. There are small differences in the core sentiments, but our values are the same across the company. The identity of the company, our aim is to over the coming months to align all corporate and product brands as we have heard from Simon earlier, and our services will be shared over the group. We have already seen a great success and efficient gain by creating shared services model in key areas. In addition to share best practice across the value chain in areas such as farming, biology, HR, quality and R and D.
In order to drive the 1 company strategy, we have undertaken a lot of initiatives with technology and digitalization. But we must remember that the value needs to be in our hearts and be authentic. Therefore, it takes time. We have tried it before, and we need to invest in this area. The core of our values are simple, efficient and business driven and that we focus on facilitate knowledge and sharing best practices and talent pipelines across the group.
Some examples from our one company services are, for example, in the sales division, where we have aligned into 1 sales organization with fully transparent and control of production. We already have some great examples of changes that have been implemented and tried out. Some of the examples are, for example, the wider product range, better ability to supply customers, take advantage of the larger network, align the organization into key account managers, etcetera, etcetera. There are also some issues that we need to focus on to clear out. In the FEED, we are rolling out hospital FEED over all our sites in Scotland.
We see benefits from the marketing underlying our messages. We see also great benefits that Ott will tell us more about later today in Habsburg in the production. In the fresh in the farming service vessels, we see also huge possibilities of improving this area and exactly this moment, Baccarat is preparing to set sail to Scotland to support our activities there. And I'm confident that sharing knowledge and best practice will give us great advantages for operations going forward. Our four targets of healthy people that we will focus on in our healthy living report will be on lost time injury rate, which we will focus to keep below 5.
0 fatalities, the ISO 45,001 certification and truly one company with efficient shared services and harmonized best practices, processes. Now, Thordis Paulsen, Group Sustainability Director, will present the healthy environmental plans in this presentation. The floor is yours, Tardis.
Thank you, Rain. The world faces some of its greatest challenges ever. By 2,050, our planet will have about 9,700,000,000 inhabitants, around 25% more than we are today. And the world food production needs to double. But at the same time, the arable land is declining.
We need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have done in the last 8,000. So how can we feed almost 10,000,000,000 people? Today, we are using 50% more resources than the Earth can support. We are living as if we had 1.7 planet, according to WWF. If we continue like this, by 2,050, we will need 3 planets, but we only have 1, which has a limited level of resources.
So our pattern of consumption is unsustainable. Feeding more people sustainable is a challenge that affects the whole world and the whole food and drink industry. Sustainable produced salmon has an important role to play to ensure the future demands for protein are met. 25% of greenhouse gas emissions comes from food, so we have to dramatically reduce this. In Northern Europe, we individually create an average 3 tonnes of carbon per year from the food and drink that we consume.
This is 8.2 kilo per day. So how do we reduce this? If we base our diet on salmon, chicken or pork, as we can see here, we will reduce our carbon footprint compared to beef on that or lamb. The salmon industry has the lowest carbon footprint relative to the 5 largest sources of animal protein outlined in the Saia government. Switching from beef to salmon will lower your carbon footprint with around 85%.
But it's not only CO2 that is the issue. If we look at the land area needed to produce 100 gram of eatable protein, we can see again that pork, chicken and salmon has the lowest demand on land. If we then look at the feed conversion ratio, which describes the efficiency in terms of how much kilo feed is required to produce 1 kilo of fish, for instance. Salmon has the lowest FCR of the 2 4 largest sources of animal protein. For salmon, the FCR is around 1.2 as an industry average.
This means that to produce 1 kilo of salmon, you will need around 1.2 kilo of feet. Back of first FCR in the Faroes is much lower than the industry average at 1.08 in 2020. And so far this year, it's 1.04. In Scotland, our biological feed conversion rate was 1.18 in 2020, and we are striving to reduce this towards Faroe's levels. Another area which we need to take into account is water.
The planet faces growing water constraints as our freshwater reservoirs dry up. Estimates say that agriculture accounts for about 70% of water use in the world today, So an efficient use of our natural water resources is required. Salmon has the lowest water even lower. Baccafrost has an ongoing target to have 97% water recirculation rate in our factories. In 2020, we recycled approximately 60,000 cubic meters of water per hour in our hatcheries in the Faroe Islands.
We had a water recirculation rate at 99.7% in the Faroes in 2020. And by introducing the same RAS technology at our site, Applecross, in Scotland, we reduced water usage by 95%. We plan to invest further into RAS at other sites in Scotland to continue to decrease our water use. The most important is, however, how efficient the animal is to convert feed into meat on the plate. And here, salmon stands out.
This means that with 100 kilo of feet, you get 68 kilo of salmon meat to put on the plate compared to a much lower volume from other animal species showed on the figure. And besides all the environmental advantages, Baccafrost salmon is also a healthy source of protein. An average 100 gram of Baccafrost salmon contains 2.6 gram of omega 3 and 8.12 microgram vitamin D, which means that if you eat a portion of only 125 gram of salmon, you will have covered your recommended daily intake of both vitamin D and omega-three. If we sum it up, farmed salmon is one of the most eco efficient forms of protein available. With the lowest carbon footprint, lowest demand on land, efficient feed conversion ratio, lowest demand on freshwater, highest edible meat on the plate and rich in nutrients.
And on several of these parameters, baccharfos salmon performs even better than the industry average, and this means that Bakka for salmon is a highly resource efficient source for healthy and sustainable animal protein. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we need to grow the food production, and we believe that salmon is part of the solution for that. This is also supported by the World Resource Institute in their report Creating a Sustainable Food Future. According to the report, aquaculture production must continue to grow to meet the world's fish demand. The wild fish catch peaked at 94,000,000 tonnes in the mid-90s and has since then stagnated or perhaps declined a bit.
They project fish consumption to rise 58% between 2010 2050. And the growth must come from aquaculture, and it has to be done in a sustainable way. We want to contribute to that solution by growing up our production in a sustainable way. So how do we do that? Across our entire value chain, we seek to maximize the efficient use of resources and minimize waste generation as it's not only the right thing to do, but it also makes business sense.
When we are investing in new buildings, we ensure that they are energy efficient as energy efficient as possible. We build green. For instance, in this factory here at Libre, all heating, including the warm water from washing, comes from excess heat generated from the production of the packaging material. There is no other heat source. The same applies for the hatchery at Stromed, which is only heated by excess heat generated from pumps and machinery running.
And with the new Applecross Hatchery, we'll take this to another level, which Ian will be telling you more about in the afternoon. As well as producing energy from biological waste of the farming operation of BakaFrost, Forska produces energy from coal manure from farmers throughout the country. Leftovers are used for natural liquid fertilizer, which contains valuable nutrients. We recycle and repurpose old farming nets and chains where possible, and we repair and reuse cables and pipes from old nets when we build new ones or new pens. We continue to upgrade our pens using stronger materials to increase their lifespan.
All structures are reused in the building of new pens or reused in other parts of the business, and we send all nets to a company which recycles them into carpets. We collect and, where possible, recycle the feedbacks we use as well. We are also investing in electrification. The majority of Baccafrost feeding barges in the Faroe Islands are powered by electrical sea cables from land, and we are building a new pure electric work boat. And despite its high edible yield, we also strive to utilize all the co products from our salmon.
We're selling backbones, offcuts, belly, skin and heads. We also have 100% utilization of marine raw materials at our fish meal and oil factory. Our new vessel Baccafrost will be delivered with hybrid technology, and we invest in our own airline to reduce carbon emission. I will go through into more details about this in my session in the afternoon. And finally, to sum up some of our targets, We have a 50% reduction target at our Scope 1 and 2 in the Faroes by 2,030.
We have a target at over 97% water recirculation rate in our hatcheries. We will ensure sustainable feed ingredients, supporting further growth. We will implement ISO 14,001 certification in the Faroe Islands, which is already in place in Scotland. And we are committed to 0 fish escapes. And finally, we will commit to net 0 by 2,050.
Thank you very much, Thordis. This is really fantastic story, and it is fantastic to be part of creating food, a sustainably produced food and being part of creating solutions to the world as we face increased issues because, of course, we need to produce food in the world and we can do it sustainably. And we have a responsibility when we have big areas around us on the western side of Scotland and here in the Faroes to increase the production from the sea. The ocean is 70% of the globe, but produces only, I don't know, 20% of the food or I think it's certain of that level. So we think it's a great opportunity for us.
In order to do all this, we are of course cooperating with our local communities And I think that one of the important areas there are the local investments that we undertake in the communities. We create local jobs in rural areas. Over the last 8 years, Baccarat has invested DKK 4,400,000,000 in rural areas where local jobs and activity might not be present. We work closely with local authorities and prioritize a good cooperation with them. We remain committed to create and retain value in the rural economies.
We respect the major role that salmon farming plays in these areas and are committed to being active as an integral part of our communities. In Scotland, our operations are very much on the West Coast and in the Highlands in the rural areas. And here in the Faroes, we are investing in areas where there are very little or no activity in many places. Salmon farming includes these support activities, which are vital to these communities for jobs and the economy to keep open local schools, for example. We are the largest private employer in the Hebridean Islands, where many of these islands are classified as economically fragile.
We will ensure that we meet growing demand through regulated growth and in compliance with relevant laws and to international standards and regulations. We are committed to demonstrate responsible leadership at an international level and locally work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders. Building trust and open transparent communication and reporting is in focus and is published in our yearly healthy living report, which we have been doing for the last 4 years. We see collaboration across the industry as key stakeholders in a crucial part to improve industrial practices. Examples of our active role are, for example, that we were one of the founders of the GSI, which is a global initiative and we are also we were also founders of the local Faroe's business initiative, Uradict, To bring together company CEOs and empower technical staff to work together and do the hard work of addressing sectors' critical challenges is important.
Through information sharing and to find solutions and motivate environmental improvements, fluttering the learning curve for everybody and how to make the industry more sustainable. We aim to have a culture of openness and cooperation to ensure that we can drive the sector forward through initiatives and continuous improvement through the whole value chain and also the supply chain. Health and safety is fundamental in the operations. We aim to be a preferred employer to fairness and equality of opportunities. We are one company through our values across the group, practices and aiming for excellence through best practice, integrity in what we say is what we deliver And competency with high skilled workforce, increasingly important as the industry develops and business become more complex, requiring a different skill set.
As a significant employer in our locations, we take our responsibility serious to give back to community. We partner with educational institutions to create learning opportunities for students at various grades and levels. We aim to create awareness to the meaningful and diverse jobs in the aquaculture industry. We are encouraged to be able to offer meaningful employment also for people who might face challenges in life. In Scotland, we have developed a mental health and well-being strategy to meet the challenges to create awareness.
This has only been an aged as an important topic during COVID and the lockdowns. We pride ourselves with a diverse workforce. For new coming international staff, we are creating various initiatives to ensure a good integration into communities. We respect the major role that we play in the remote rural areas, which we live in and work and are committed to be an active and integral part of the communities. We continue to develop numerous community initiatives and engagement activities across our wide area of operation.
Recruitment can be challenging in some of these areas with lack of availability in local housing. In Scotland, we have taken steps to provide some accommodation, including for families. As a part of this, we are now proud to be owners of a local cafe, which is very local hub of the community and treasured by all. And this is a house for 3 families. We have on the healthy communities outlined the top four priorities, which are investment in key skills to facilitate sustainable growth and investment plan, increased transparency on local value creation, educate key stakeholders on the benefits of salmon aquaculture, increase collaboration with key stakeholders to achieve the healthy living plan and continue invest via our healthy living fund in the Faroes and community fund in Scotland.
So we live with and for the local communities, and they are an important area for us. So we are coming to the end of this session, and we have went through the 5 areas of our healthy living strategy. We have, as you have seen, comprehensive plans for the Baccarfloors Group over the next 5 years. Our new strategy is a continuation and expansion of the original strategy that we developed in Baccafrost during the last 2 decades. Our foundation is raising a healthy salmon.
We are dedicated to continuous improve our operations and to invest in this commitment. The specific targets will focus on our organization to create a healthy business. Healthy people and capable organization with a truly one company strategy will drive the changes and continued improvements. Health environment is conditional for our operations. Strong commitments and close cooperation with local communities are essential for our license to operate.
We believe healthy communities are vital for our sustainable growth. Thank you very much. And now we are open to a Q and A session, where you in the room are able to ask questions. There will be a microphone, which will be given to you so that the audience on the live stream also can hear the questions. And if there are someone in the live streaming that want to put forward a question, you are able to send the question to not up there.
It is to cmdbakerfrost.com.
Hi, Alexander Ochten from DNB Markets. You want to grow your volumes in the Faroe Islands by roughly 50% the next 5 years. That's obviously a substantial growth and also substantial increase in the footprint. You don't have a MAB structure in terms of licenses, but you need to have certain environmental sustainability factors. So, how comfortable are you that you will be allowed by local government to grow by 50% within the next 5 years?
What kind of sustainability measures do you need to comply to in order to achieve that growth?
Yes. Thank you, Alexander, for your question. As you say, we focus on growth rate of 7% for the company as a whole over the next 5 years, a CAGR of 7% per year. Some years, it might be larger, some years, slightly lower. As you remember, at our last Capital Market Day 2 years ago, we at that time, we just had achieved licenses in the South Island where we had the whole island.
So there is some additional licenses added there. And then a part of our growth will be from large malt as we are going to produce eventually around 12, 13,000 tons of fish on land before they entered into the sea. So a part of the growth is from new operations. It is very important for us and it is a condition for our growth that we grow sustainably. And of course, as you say, if we are not allowed from authorities, then we will not deliver.
So therefore, it's important that we are in line with the regulation. And the most important regulation is that we have a healthy salmon. And a healthy salmon means that we have a high survival rate of our fish, we have low lice numbers, We have no diseases. We control the biology. So we keep a good track of the biology and we understand and we see during these first trials or the trials over the years with large, small that reducing the time in the sea, keeping longer time on land and producing a high quality smalt gives us an opportunity to expand and to increase the productivity from the constrained licenses.
The constraint is in the licenses, in the fjords. So by reducing the time, we can use the same license more efficiently. And over the last 10 years, we have focused on moving our sites out to more exposed areas because the other fundamental issue is the bantix. Every year, we check the bantix under each pen And over the last 10 years, our benthic numbers have improved into the right direction. And we think that this is a result from the changed farming strategy where we now farm on more exposed areas outside the fjord instead of inside the fjord.
That means that the environment is much healthier. And this is crucial as we are reducing the cycles and actually increasing the utilization of the license. So if we are able to deliver a healthy salmon, then we believe that we can deliver sustainable growth. And that is the real test for us. So we are not asking for more licenses.
We are just updating our farming methodology to farm smarter, to reduce the risk during this. Sustainability measures in this program are very much the top 4 or 5 priorities that we have put forward in this presentation in each of the areas. And we can come into details at the deep dive presentations where we can go more in details, but it will be very much on the healthy salmon. Have you anything to add, Wagner?
No. Not to that, no. But we have some questions also from the audience following us on the webcast. We have one here from Martin Karland at ABG. And he is asking he says that you have historically prioritized to keep a conservative and low debt level, while the higher investments over the next couple of years is likely to increase debt, the debt burden somewhat.
And he is asking how, what level of comfort we have in increasing our debt and if we have a specific interest bearing debt targets. I can answer that and say that, yes, he is absolutely right. We will increase our debt burden somewhat. We expect to finance these investments by a combination of available financing and also the cash flow. We have been very conservative in regards to our debt level, and we will increase somewhat over the next 2, 3 years or so.
And then we expect that we will be moving in the right direction again, and we are comfortable with that level.
And you are right, Martin, that the historical debt level have been low in Baccarat Rost, and we maintain our strategy with dividend unchanged. And of course, the good thing with this strategy is on this CapEx plan is that uncommitted investments, I mean, if the world collapses, then uncommitted investments can be postponed. That has been also the case also over the last since 2013 when we have done these investment plans, of course, to plan 5 years is impossible. And therefore, we update this plan every 2nd year or 3rd year with a new Capital Market Day. So far, every time we have upgraded our plans, but there might be a time in the future where we are slightly decreasing our plans, who knows.
It's very important that we keep the debt in line so that we are in control and not the banks.
Thank you. Good morning, Thomas Bonnier and Lazard. We're seeing the boundaries between hatcheries and land based farming maybe blurring a little bit. I'm just wondering as you move to smolts up to 500 grams, what's the industrial risk and the risk profile in the ash trees? Any risk of incidents like we've seen in land based farming?
That's the first question. And second question, is there a path and need to go beyond 500 grams after that?
You want to answer that, Rain?
Yes. Thank you very much for the question. Of course, this is a very relevant question. As you know, we have seen a lot of incidents in land based farming. And when we look at the insurance cost at the hatcheries, it is more expensive than insurance cost at sea in marine phase.
We pay a higher premium on land based and that's because it's more risky. There are pumps which can stop or electricity can go out or something can break. We have in Wackerfrost now operated with land based or RAS systems since the mid-90s. So we have a vast experience, we think. And we have also seen accidents, but we have managed the accidents and the risks in this.
And we are also happy that the Strand facility, which at that time was the world's largest RAS facility and is now producing at a level of 4,000 ton per year, has had no major accidents since we started and we have been in full operation now for 2 years. There are risks and we need to mitigate them. And as you are going to see firsthand today, this hatchery, you can go through the different areas, but there are, for example, ways to mitigate. So we have three level of backup for electricity breakdown, for example. We have 10 separate units, which are totally undepended, so that we should not have a major incident and we have developed very high technological systems to monitor, track and give and to give alarm and also to control the system.
So we think that with the experience that we have, we have balanced out the risks and the track record is good. Of course, when you go beyond 500, that was part of your question, we need we think that at the moment, we need first to stabilize ourselves at €500,000,000 There might be a way that we could go beyond €500,000,000 That's a question of the cost and the summer price. With 500 gram, our argument has been that the synergies between utilization of idle capacity in fjords and the extra cost in the freshwater stage has balanced out, so that we could actually get increased production with the same level of cost per kilo. When you go beyond 500 gram, for example, up to 700 or 1 kilo or whatever, you will have some level of losing that competitive advantage. So that depends on, of course, the market price.
But that's also the case when we go offshore or when we go fully land based. So this is a question when is or will there be a time when this is viable. At this moment or our next I'm sure that over the next 10 years, we will continue to invest in land based with large or smalls. Whether or not we are going to set our next goal at 700 gram or 1 kilo, it's too early to say. But we see that it's huge investments.
The strong facility that you are going to see had investment cost close to DKK 1,000,000,000 around 900. I think that the learnings from there is that we can do it cheaper. We can do some improvements so that we can do the next sites at a more competitive level, but it is quite costly compared to other investments. And it is right that the risk level is higher and therefore it is very, very important to manage those risks. Was that okay or?
Good morning. Ingo Nix from Financiitis. One question. Global warming and climate changes is hitting everybody in the next couple of years. And if the seawater level, the temperature is rising, what's the medium effect for salmon and pest control?
Okay.
Could I ask Dan to answer that? That's a very good question. And I think there are a lot of unknowns as part of that answer. If we look at some of the climate models that we have looked into, it seems that the oceans around the Faroe East waters at least look to be less affected. But again, these are highly this is highly uncertain.
We have in the Faroes a relatively large So in the Faroes, we have a relatively high buffer, So in the Faroes, we have a relatively high buffer upwards and also downwards for cooler temperatures. So we can withstand some change. In Scotland, we have slightly higher temperatures. So if the temperature, for instance, were to increase even further Scotland, that would mean that we probably will have more challenges with the biology in the high risky summer periods, which Ian talked about, hence stressing the importance of actually reducing the growth in the marine environment. But then again, climate change can also be other things.
It does not need to be seawater temperatures. It can also be rain, it can be storms and all other kinds of issues. And we need to prepare for these kind of scenarios as well. So this is something that we are working on. But as mentioned, there are a lot of uncertainties that we need to be prepared for.
I think that we in the salmon business have learned the same as Henry Ford used to refer to when he said that failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. I think we have done that very often.
Okay. Harald from Holberg. You mentioned you have a 5 year target of at least 7% volume growth. And then of course, assuming healthy salmon price and healthy biologics going forward, we should expect a good increase in results from the Scotland business. And of course, you have economies of scale, etcetera.
So, when I do my back of envelope calculations, I end up with at least 15% annual EPS growth. I'm not asking you for a guidance, but could you comment on your ambitions for the EPS growth next 5 years, please?
Thanks. You want to answer that, Rein?
I think that's within your category.
Yes. As we saw from the numbers that we went through, we have a very, very significant cost issue in the operation in Scotland. And we are very confident that we will able we will be able to fix a lot of that, not all, but a lot of those issues with the investments that we will be doing. And again, the large, small and reduced risk of an extended growth phase in the risky more risky marine environment in Scotland is the key. With the investments that we will be making, where we replicate the successful recipe that we have implemented here in the Faroes in Scotland, we expect that it is achievable to become industry leading in regards to margins in Scotland.
I don't know if that was a good enough answer for you. I could perhaps add a question that we received from Alexander Jones at Bank of America. He is asking about the development of the Faroe East farming costs over the 5 year plan. And also about our production capacity of 23,000,000 smalls or 500 grams in the Faroes and 18 in Scotland, what that means for future growth. In regards to the farming cost, I think we have covered that with the Rainey's comment before, that we expect that farming costs in the Faroe will remain relatively stable as we can offset the extra costs with a higher from the hatcheries, producing larger smalts with synergy effects in the marine phase.
In regards to the larger smalts, producing 41,000,000 smalls at 500 gram in 2025. Having that capacity, of course, could indicate that there could be some growth in the long term. And that's also why we are investing the way that we are doing in house brewing to ensure that we also have the capacity to feed the growing volume in the long term. So we are preparing for further growth.
Thanks, Urbandal, Nordea. Regarding the investment program, maybe you can give us some color on the investments in marine activities from 2024 and onwards. And maybe some color on how much of that is allocated to pursuing new methods of production?
We have allocated what we would call significant funds without going into details with how much that exactly is. But we are talking about significant funds to cover growth in general in the marine site development. So this could go this will go into new sites as well. There are opportunities in Scotland, for instance, for acquiring new licenses. We have seen already since our acquisition of the company that we have successfully managed to get new licenses.
And of course, that will then require that we invest in setting up an operation in such areas. But we have also allocated significant funds for offshore opportunities or other technology that proved to be a viable option.
Thanks.
And just to comment on, again, referring to Rejens' comment about the flexibility in these investments. If we if the market swings against us, this could be such an investment that we say, okay, we wait with these large investments in, for instance, offshore or new technology. We postponed that a couple of years or whatever. Christian Nordby, Kepler Cheuvreux. If you are right and your ambitious targets in Scotland with the peak conversion ratio and yields, what sort of cost spread are we looking at to the Faroe East costs 5 to 10 years out in time?
Rehan, last one for you.
We think that the cost will come down. We think that there is a good opportunity that with the same improvements that we did here in Faroes over the last 10, 15 years, we can achieve considerably lower cost in Scotland. However, there are some issues also with smaller licenses and areas where we need to reallocate farms. And we don't have a full overview of the how that timeline will be. So at the moment, the best guiding is that there will be a difference.
There will be a difference, but if it's $1 per kilo or something else, I don't know. But it seems that it's at this moment, at least, it will be more costly. But the healthy salmon and the KPIs that we see here in Faroes, we don't see why we shouldn't get that in Scotland as well.
Just a follow-up on that. I don't really know the structure of the industry in Scotland. So can you tell us a little bit how it's structured? And if when you have done all these investments and improved the operations, you potentially have the ability to do more acquisitions there and buy smaller operators and get good synergies with your new platform sort of.
We will go much more in details with Ian's presentation in the afternoon in Scotland, but I can say that we have much more we have many more much higher number of sites in Scotland, which we will streamline. And in our investment plan, we will also significantly increase the capacity and the flexibility of our processing. On the acquisition side, I don't see big possibilities, but we see possibilities to gain new licenses. We think that we should be able to do a similar trend with moving sites out of locks. In Scotland, a fjord is a lock.
And we think also there are new areas where we can set up sites. So this is what Ian will tell us much more about in the afternoon. And but the bottom line is that we see a lot of potentials in this area.
I think we have time for one more question. I see that we are a bit behind schedule. We have also some questions that have come in over the mail, and we will answer those questions. And in the audience here, we have lots of opportunities to dig into the details. But we could take one question before we end this session.
It's going to be a more housekeeping one then. Anders Knutsen from SEB. So this €6,000,000,000 that you're going to spend over the next coming 5 years and you said it's going be front loaded and accelerated. So perhaps you could elaborate a bit how much of that you will spend over the next 2 years, please?
Yes, I think that was visible in our overview on the slides that I showed you. But we are talking about DKK2 1,000,000,000 in investments over the past over the next 2 years. And what we mainly are doing is that we are putting full effort behind building the hatchery capacity in Scotland because that is what really drives the transformation. So we need to get those investments done as soon as possible. We are in the process of expanding the Applecross.
Ian will go more in detail with that. We are now making it bigger than we originally planned. And then there will be the next hatchery. So those are the main focuses is our main focus for the couple next couple of years. Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for being here in person and also you on the live stream. Unfortunately, we will have to leave you because the rest of the program is not being streamlined. So now we will go onboard the Hansa Baca at the key site, where we will be served lunch by the famous Faroe's chief, Kothi Winter. Mon and Jani in the blue jackets will lead us.
And after the lunch, we will go on the tour through the value chain, and you will find your group number on your badge. There is I think we are 3 groups, so we will have different tours. So everybody will go through the same, but we will be divided so that we have better smaller groups. So it will be hopefully good discussions and a lot of questions. Thank you very much.