Good morning, everyone, both in the room and online, and welcome to the presentation of Mowi's third quarter results of 2023. My name is Ivan Vindheim, and I'm the CEO of Mowi, and with me today to present our financial figures and fundamentals, I have, as usual, our CFO, Kristian Ellingsen. After presentation, our IRO, Kim Døsvig, will routinely host our Q&A session, but those who are following the presentation online can submit your questions or comments in advance or as we go along by email. Please refer to our website at mowi.com for the necessary details. Disclaimer, I think we leave for self-study.
Then I think we are ready for the highlights of the quarter, which was another record-breaking quarter for Mowi in terms of top line and growth, as both operational revenue of EUR 1.36 billion and farming volumes of 135,000 tons were all-time high. Speaking of growth, we maintain our volume guidance for this year of record high 484,000 tons, which is up from 464,000 tons last year and equivalent to a growth of 4.3% year-over-year, surpassing that of the wider industry by a large margin. For next year, we expect to harvest record high 500,000 tons, which is a milestone for us as we cross the magic 500,000 tons mark for the first time in Mowi's 60 years history.
As you can see from the chart here, as recently as 2018, we harvested 375,000 tons in Mowi, which means we are up by 125,000 tons over the last six years. Speaking of six, a growth which alone would have been the world's 6th largest salmon farming companies, including ourselves, and which in practice is organic growth as we have lost as much volume as we have bought in the cap- as bought capacity in the period, more or less. An equivalent to a CAGR of 4.9% in what I would say is in a low-growth environment. So I simply cannot stress enough how important this is for us, because farming volumes are, in the end of the day, the mainstay of our business model and what everything hinges on in this industry. Everything.
At the same time, we are 600 fewer people in Mowi than back in 2018, so it's quite a transformational change we are going through on productivity throughout the value chain. So I think in all humility, I can say we are in a better shape today than back then. So the world is going forward in Mowi, too. But we can, and we will do more. Take the smart farming concept, for instance. It's just at the starting blocks, not to mention the ongoing digitalization and automatization of our value chain. So there is definitely more to come. Meanwhile, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my 11,500 colleagues for their invaluable efforts in making this happen. It's, of course, much appreciated.
When it comes to quarterly earnings, operating profit was EUR 203 million in the third quarter and was with that in line with the trading update of the 18th of October, impacted by seasonally lower prices in addition to the elevated biological costs we typically see in that third quarter, and this year, compounded by the weather phenomenon El Niño, particularly in our farming operations outside in Norway. Realized blended farming cost, i.e., weighted farming cost for seven farming countries, was therefore up from EUR 5.60 per kilo in the second quarter to EUR 5.73 per kilo in the third quarter. Cost of stock, on the other hand, was down quarter-over-quarter on the back of scale, in addition to stable feed prices. Year-over-year, cost to stock is stable in the quarter.
As a result of this, we expect a stable, realized blended farming cost for the fourth quarter, at least based upon the information we have today. Otherwise, once again, a heads-up on FX or foreign exchange in the wake of the weakening of the NOK we saw in the first half of the year. Bear in mind that Mowi, as a Euro company, has edged away the FX gain our Norwegian peers have benefited from so greatly so far this year. And in the third quarter, this cost us alone EUR 35 million or 0.41 EUR per kilo. And for 2023 in total, so I accumulated, we are talking about as much as EUR 102 million or 0.48 EUR per kilo. So this is significant.
So please take that into account when you do your own benchmark comparisons for Norway for the third quarter and for the year, for that matter. So much about farming. In terms of consumer products, our downstream business, we delivered another set of strong operational results in the quarter, I would say. Actually, record high for our third quarter, and the same goes for feed. And our feed performance was strong in the quarter, which was manifested in our harvest volumes and guidance. From one thing to another, resource rent tax. Since previous quarter, we have updated our resource rent tax estimate for Mowi, Norway.
As you all know this tax is only applicable for our seawater operations in Norway, and after having carefully priced up our, our extensive and diverse value chain in Norway, together with leading tax experts, our new estimate for this tax is now about 10% in steady state, for Norway or for our Norwegian business across the value chain, on top of corporate tax. Please bear in mind that this is still a preliminary estimate and consequently subject to material uncertainty. Since previous quarter, we have also revised our long-term debt target in Mowi from EUR 1.4 billion to EUR 1.7 billion euro to better reflect the growth we have been through over the past few years, and thereby our improved debt service capacity.
Yesterday, we were notified that we are once again ranked as the world's most sustainable animal protein producer by the prestigious Coller FAIRR Initiative. This is the fifth year in a row, and as we have said numerous times, sustainability is deeply ingrained in the Mowi culture and at the core of everything we do. So this is most definitely something we appreciate internally, so kudos to our organization for this achievement. Finally, the board of directors has decided to distribute a quarterly dividend of 1.50 NOK per share after the third quarter, which compares roughly with 50% of underlying earnings per share, and as such, is in line with our dividend policy. That, I think, does it for the highlights of the quarter, then over to key financials.
This time, as usual, go in-depth on financial figures under his session, so as not to be too repetitive, we'll just touch briefly upon the most important ones now. First, turnover. If you already have been through, Mowi recorded a record high operational revenue of EUR 1.36 billion in the third quarter, which is up by 8% year-over-year, on 1% higher farming volumes. Operational profit, on the other hand, was down year-over-year from EUR 240 million in the third quarter last year to EUR 203 million in the third quarter this year, at least when measured in euro. By measured NOK, however, operational EBIT is quite stable year-over-year, NOK 2.3 billion in this quarter versus NOK 2.4 billion in the third quarter last year.
Cash flow in the quarter, I would characterize as good, at least adjusted for tie-up of working capital and capital expenditures, and that interest-bearing debt came in at EUR 1.71 billion, which is in line with our new debt target of EUR 1.7 billion. Otherwise, equity ratio was a healthy 48% at the end of the quarter, and underlying earnings per share was EUR 0.24, and annualized return on capital employed was 15%, both adjusted for our new resource rent tax estimate for Mowi in Norway. In terms of regional margins to the value chain, Mowi in Norway and Mowi Faroes stood once again out positively, while our margin for our Canadian operations, in particular, stood out negatively this time around due to algae-induced mortality in British Columbia.
We will, we will get back to further details and explanations shortly when we go through the different business entities. But first, briefly about the prices in the quarter. As expected, spot prices corrected down in the third quarter from record levels in the first half of the year due to seasonally higher supply. Having said that, I think it's still fair to say that we saw reasonably good prices in Europe in that quarter, whilst we struggled somewhat more in Americas, which also follows the trend we already saw in the second quarter on more influx of volumes in the American market, including wild salmon. Year-over-year, prices are also down for the salmon of Chilean origin by 4%, whilst it's somewhat up for the salmon of the other origins, at least adjusted for contracts.
Then our own relative price performance in the quarter, which I would characterize as strong as it was 9% above the reference price, which is the price we like to hold ourselves to internally. And we didn't have any particular negative outliers either this time around. Maybe with the exception of Canada East, where we harvested out some small ISA fish in the quarter. Otherwise, total contract share for the group was 24% in the quarter, and for the first time this year, contracts contributed positively to our price achievement. And unfortunately, unfortunately, I guess I should add to that. Then briefly about the EBIT waterfall. As we already have been through, and as we can see from this chart, operation EBIT decreased year-over-year from EUR 240 million- EUR 203 million, and as said, at least when measured in euro.
When measured in NOK, however, operating EBIT was, as said, quite stable year-over-year, NOK 2.3 billion in the third quarter this year versus NOK 2.4 billion in the third quarter last year. The driver in our business model is farming, which was a mixed bag in the third quarter, following a rather challenging biology, which is typical or quite typical for this time of year, and this time around, also compounded by the weather phenomenon, El Niño, particularly in our farming operations outside in Norway. Consumer Products and Feed on the other end, saw strong financial figures in the quarter and also improvements year-over-year, which I think is a timely juncture to address the different business entities. First one out is, as usual, Mowi Norway, our largest and most important entity by far.
Operation EBIT was EUR 185 million for Mowi Norway in the quarter, and was with that down from EUR 220 million in the comparable quarter last year, due to first and foremost, higher costs driven by inflation. Both spot price and harvest volumes were quite stable year-over-year. EBIT margin was EUR 2.15 per kilo for Mowi Norway in the quarter, and as addressed on the highlights, as a Euro company, Mowi Norway did not benefit from the weakening of the NOK we saw in the first half of the year, which cost us EUR 35 million alone in the third quarter, or EUR 0.41 per kilo.
So adjusted for that, operation EBIT for Mowi Norway would have been EUR 220 million and not EUR 185 million in the third quarter, and margin would have been EUR 2.56 per kilo instead of EUR 2.15 per kilo. Otherwise, we have seen good growth in seafood Mowi Norway so far this year. And further to that, we have increased our farming or our volume guidance for this year to a record high 295,000 tons from originally 290,000 tons, and further to a record high 305,000 tons next year. Which is a new milestone for us and a continuation of Mowi Norway's impressive growth trajectory over the past few years, and cementing our strong license utilization and production efficiency in Norway.
As you can see from the chart here, we harvested 210,000 tons in Mowi Norway as recently as 2017. A growth of almost 100,000 tons, which in practice is organic growth, as our MAB reductions through the traffic light system are close to both capacity in the period. A big thank you to our Norwegian farming organization for this achievement. It's, of course, highly appreciated. Shortly about the breakdown of the margins for the different regions in Mowi Norway in the quarter. As you can see from this chart, we saw strong margins for both Region North, Region West, and Region South in the quarter at 2.61 EUR per kilo, 1.86 EUR per kilo, and 2.48 EUR per kilo, respectively.
For the Mowi's parts, margin was adversely impacted by low harvest volumes in the quarter, in addition to harvesting out problematic sites. On a positive note, however, our turnaround plan for this region is progressing slowly but surely, and for the fourth quarter, we expect improved financial performance on higher volumes, in addition to harvesting from better-performing sites. The last slide on Mowi Norway, our Norwegian sales contract portfolio. After having lost on our Norwegian contracts in the first and the second quarter, we finally profited on them in the third quarter, and unfortunately, as I said earlier, contract level was 22% in the quarter, and but that's approximately in line with the guidance. For the fourth quarter, we expect it to be around 29% at relatively stable prices quarter-over-quarter.
As for 2024 contracts, since we are negotiating as we speak, we cannot say much about that today, other than ask for your understanding that we will get back to it in February at our fourth quarter release. Meanwhile, we must keep things close to the chest. Then it's time to address the other farming countries, and first one out is Mowi Scotland. After an encouraging first half of the year for our Scottish operation, the third quarter was, as expected, much tougher due to record high seawater temperatures in the wake of El Niño and subsequent issues with micro jellyfish and gills, causing elevated mortality at some of our farms, in addition to low harvest weights, as we have been forced to harvest out some of our fish earlier than we would like.
So although better than last year, this resulted in a, what I would say, soft margin of EUR 0.63 per kilo for our Scottish volumes in the quarter, and an operational profit of EUR 9 million. And in terms of course of events, I would say things went reasonably well for us until September, when things escalated due to rapidly deteriorating water quality. And I think it's fair to say that we have experienced a challenging October as well, so a heads-up on biological costs for the fourth quarter. And by extension, we have reduced our farming volume guidance for this year from 64,000 tons originally to 62,000 tons. And if anything, there is downside risk to this estimate. Then overseas to Mowi Chile.
Mowi Chile saw also an operational profit of EUR 9 million in the quarter, and for their part, down from EUR 22 million in the comparable quarter last year. Margin is also down from EUR 1.27 per kilo to EUR 0.48 per kilo, driven by both lower prices and higher cost. In regard to the latter, mainly due to inflation, as biology was reasonably good for Mowi Chile in the quarter and year to date for that matter. The price we have already commented on, it's down year-over-year. Harvest volumes on the other hand, were quite stable year-over-year at 17,000 tons. Then moving off to Mowi Canada.
Mowi Canada made also EUR 5 million in the third quarter, which is quite similar to last year and this year, driven by what I said initially here, algae-induced mortality in British Columbia due to record high seawater temperatures in the wake of El Niño. In Canada East, on the other hand, we saw steady operation performance in the quarter. As for the fourth quarter, although both temperatures and mortality have normalized since the third quarter, we expect our fourth quarter numbers to be impacted by this as well, in addition to low dilutional costs due to little harvest and lack of scale, which brings us to our smallest farming entities, Mowi Ireland and Mowi Faroes.
For Mowi Ireland, we made an operating profit of EUR 1.5 million in the quarter, with a margin of EUR 0.75 per kilo on 2,000 tons harvest volume. This is substantially better than last year, when our numbers were marred by biological issues. In Mowi Faroe Islands, operating EBIT also improved year-over-year and came to EUR 5 million, by means of a strong margin of EUR 1.91 per kilo on 2,500 tons harvest volume. Operating metrics were also strong for Mowi Faroe Islands in the quarter.... Then the latest addition to the Mowi family, Arctic Fish, our 51% owned Icelandic subsidiary, which we took over earlier this year.
I think it's fair to say that the third quarter in Iceland did not live up to our expectations, as we just broke even on a decent harvest volume of 4,500 tons. This was mainly a result of increased biological costs in relation to lice issues, in addition to startup costs at our new processing plant in Bolungarvík. Historically, lice haven't been a problem in Iceland, but now we see that Iceland is becoming more akin to the other farming countries in Europe. We therefore need to build up delicing capacity and implement appropriate procedures accordingly, which, in all honesty, are not in place today. Together with the authorities, we also have to streamline the bureaucracy around the delicing approvals so that we can take the right measures at the right time. That's critically important in this.
Today, it takes far too long, and in our humble opinion, the decisions are not always the right ones either. As a result of these lice issues, we have regrettably found ourselves obliged to take down our farming volume guidance for Arctic Fish for this year from 15,000 tons to 11,500 tons, and further to 10,000 tons in next year. Then I think we are ready for consumer products, our downstream business. Operating profit was EUR 40 million for consumer products in the third quarter, and was for that our best third quarter to date, and up from EUR 30 million in the third quarter last year. On strong operation performance, more or less across the board, I would say, in addition to capitalizing on lower raw material costs due to seasonally lower salmon prices.
We also sold 6% more volumes—not quarter-over-quarter, but year-over-year, which contributed positively, positively to our quarterly earnings. In terms of overall demand, I think it's fair to say it's holding up reasonably well, I'm talking about the salmon, notwithstanding the economic slowdown we are facing. Then last one out, Mowi Feed. The third quarter is high season for our feed division, with all that entails, and this quarter was no exception in that respect, as we can put behind us a quarter with feed profit and feed volumes at record levels on strong demand from Mowi farming. Operating EBITDA was EUR 20 million in the quarter, while sold volumes were 169,000 tons. And the feed performance was, as usual, good, which is something we never take lightly as the world's largest salmon farmer by far.
You have heard it before, and I say it again, the proof of the pudding is literally in the eating in this industry, all the way to the plate. So then, Kristian, the floor is all yours, so you can walk us through the financial figures and fundamentals. Thank you so far.
Thank you very much, Ivan. Good morning, everybody. Hope everybody is doing well this morning. As usual, we start with the overview of profit and loss, which shows a record high revenue of EUR 1.36 billion, and that's on all-time high harvest volumes and somewhat higher achieved farming prices. Operational EBIT is somewhat down from Q3 last year, as we realized higher cost from inventory driven by previous inflation. Cash cash feed prices have been rather stable this year. And with regards to the items between operational EBIT and financial EBIT, the fair value adjustment on biomass in the balance sheet is relatively stable, so limited P&L effect.
Operational earnings from our associated company, Nova Sea, was good in the quarter, 2.73 EUR per kilo, including a temporary FX gain related to the weakening of the NOK. Net financial items increased on higher interest costs, partly offset by currency fluctuations. With regards to the financial KPIs, underlying earnings per share was 0.24 EUR in Q3 and 1.03 EUR year to date, versus 1.09 EUR year to date last year. Net cash flow per share was 0.10 EUR, impacted by working capital tie-up and tax payments. Return on capital employed of 15% is adjusted for resource rent tax in Norway. Ex resource rent tax, the figure would have been 15.9%. Then over to the resource rent tax in Norway.
This slide illustrates the value chain in our Norwegian operations. This is the most diverse value chain in the industry. Most of the activities we see here are subject to the ordinary 22% corporate tax only. And then, in addition, of course, the seawater phase here, as indicated, that's subject to 25% resource rent tax from first of January this year. And as the work internally, led by leading tax experts that has helped us externally, has progressed, we have been able to update our estimate on the effective resource rent tax across the Norwegian value chain, and that estimate is 10%.
That is an estimate on a run rate basis, an indication of what this will be over time, not necessarily per quarter or per year, due to various adjustments, but an indication over time. The reason, of course, for that the effective rate is lower than the nominal rate, is that all these other activities, such as breeding, smolt, feed, processing, distribution, they are not in scope for the new tax. They are only subject to 22% tax. Please note that this 10% estimate is preliminary and subject to material uncertainty. In accordance with IFRS, we have included this estimate in the tax cost in the P&L.
Please also note that when we are talking about the Norwegian value chain, we exclude consumer products as this is activities abroad. Then over to costs. We have seen a leveling out of cash cost to stock, as shown in the top graph here. We see 2023 in red and 2022 in gray. Feed prices have been stable this year, as mentioned already, and that's an important factor here. Many of the feed ingredients have reduced in price, but this has been offset by the development in marine ingredients such as fish meal, and particularly fish oil. The high fish oil prices have been driven by cancellation of the first season of the Peruvian anchoveta season.
But on a positive note, the second season is progressing well, and the announced quota is 1.7 million tons. We see here from the below graph that this is above the ten-year average of 1.5 million tons. Seventy percent of the quota is already caught. Also positive for cost to stock is the fact that biological KPIs in farming have improved year to date, 2023 versus 2022. With regards to realized P&L costs, we expect this to be stable in Q4 versus Q3, provided no material biological incidents. Before we leave the profit and loss entirely, we also need to remind you of the currency effects from the weakening of the NOK. Mowi is a euro company with a cash flow predominantly in euro, financed in euro.
This means that we remove currency fluctuations. The NOK has seen a significant weakening since 2012. As we see here, 56% versus euro and as much as 96% versus U.S. dollars. Quite considerable numbers. The NOK weakening leads to FX gains for our Norwegian peers, and this gain is due to the difference between revenue immediately being realized at high rates and costs at a lower rate due to a time lag on currency impact on cost. Cash-wise, it takes approximately six months before a weaker NOK drives up cash costs, but it takes longer time for the full P&L effect to catch up due to the long production cycle.
In the meantime, there is a gain, which is gradually reduced as time passes and is neutral in steady state, and the inverse is true when the NOK is strengthening, then there is a FX loss for Norwegian peers. Mowi has hedged away these effects. In Q3, the margin difference represents a loss of EUR 0.41 per kilo for the Norwegian volumes or EUR 35 million nominally. And this means that the margin for Mowi Norway would have been EUR 2.56 per kilo in Q3, adjusted for this effect. The year-to-date effect is EUR 0.48 per kilo. Moving on to the balance sheet. From year-end 2022, non-current assets have increased by approximately EUR 100 million on higher fixed assets driven by investments, different projects in our value chain.
Furthermore, current assets have increased, driven by higher biomass. Mowi has a strong financial position, with a covenant equity ratio of 50.6% after implementing the resource rent tax in Norway in our numbers. With regards to our cash flow, the strong operational earnings were partly offset by tax payments and working capital tie-ups. Accordingly, NIBD moved from EUR 1.67 billion- EUR 1.706 billion under Q3. The long-term NIBD target has been increased to EUR 1.7 billion from the EUR 1.4 billion target set back in 2018, following volume and earnings increase and, consequently, higher debt servicing capacity.
With regards to the updated cash flow guidance, the working capital tie-up for this year is indicated to 150 million EUR, which is an increase from the previous guiding, following good growth in sea and the working capital tie-up in biomass, and also in the rest of our value chain from increased volumes. CapEx is reduced somewhat, while tax payments for this year somewhat increased, partly due to prepayments of tax. With regards to the financing, there are no changes in Mowi's financing in the quarter. We have a strong financing in place, where nothing matures until 2025, at the earliest. And the bank syndicate is the backbone of our financing, and we highly value our relationship with the banks listed here.
Then we move on to supply and demand fundamentals, starting with the global supply, which decreased by 3% versus Q3 last year, compared with the guiding between -1% to +2%. Volumes from Europe were lower than expected due to generally more challenging environmental conditions and water quality issues, as well as lower harvest weights, especially in Scotland, but also to a certain extent in Norway. Norway decreased by 2%, and Scotland decreased by 9%. And closing biomass in Norway is up 3%, which indicates some supply growth ahead. Chile decreased by 3% versus guiding of -6%, so more volumes from Chile than expected. Biological performance was stable, and we expect very limited growth in Chile next year.
Consumption was reduced following lower supply. That being said, demand was reasonably good. In Europe, we had the value growth and volume growth in retail in several markets, including Germany, Italy, Spain. Activity levels were partly driven by promotions. In the U.S., consumption increased by 1% in Q3 versus Q3 last year, driven by food service as retail was flattish in the U.S. China continued its good development, while the rest of Asia was impacted by lower supply. And as expected, prices corrected down from the first half of the year in Q3 on seasonally higher volumes. In Chile, we saw a volume increase in the first half of the year, and consequently more pressure on prices versus Europe.
For 2023, the industry volume development is expected to be between -1% and 0%. So this would mean that 2023 will be the second year in a row with the volume contraction in the market. For 2024, we expect a modest supply growth of 2%-3%, supported by biomass data and current trends with regards to biological performance in the various regions. With regards to our own volumes, we maintain our 2023 guidance at 484,000 tons, although with some changes within the regions. And then the 2024 guidance is 500,000 tons, as already touched upon, a new milestone for the company. Then it's over to Ivan for some comments to the outlook slide. Thank you.
Thank you, Kristian. Much appreciated. Then it's time to conclude with some closing remarks before we wrap it all up with a Q&A session hosted by our IR, Kim Galtung Døsvig. As already said earlier this morning, the third quarter was another record-breaking quarter for Mowi in terms of top line and growth. And further to that, we have maintained our farming volume guidance for this year of record high 484,000 tons, which is up from 464,000 tons last year, and equivalent to a growth of 4.3% year-over-year, surpassing that of the wider industry by a large margin. For next year, we expect to harvest record high 500,000 tons, which is a milestone for us as we cross the magic 500,000 tons mark for the first time in Mowi's 60 years history.
As recently as 2018, we harvested 375,000 tons in Mowi, which means we have grown our farming volumes by 125,000 tons over the last six years, and which in practice is organic growth, as we have lost as much volumes as we have bought in the period, more or less, and equivalent to a CAGR of 4.9% in what I would say is a low growth environment. At the same time, we are 600 fewer people in Mowi than in 2018, so it's quite a transformational change we are going through on productivity. But we can and we will do more. That said, having products and being productive are not enough. We also need customers, and the demand-...
for our products and in a challenging environment, I think it's fair to say that the demand for the salmon has held up well so far. And in my view, thanks to the salmon's fantastic product features, supported by strong megatrends, but also as a result of Mowi's and others' tireless market efforts over time, because this doesn't happen by itself. As for the supply side, which is the other decisive factor in the price equation, we expect the historical trend of tighter supply towards Christmas and into the new year to repeat itself this time around as well, which under normal circumstances should be supportive for the salmon price. And for next year as a whole, we expect, as Kristian said here, a modest supply growth in the range of 2%-3%.
In the longer term, we expect the demand-supply discrepancy we have seen in recent years to continue, because for a number of reasons, conventional salmon farming faces growth limitations in most countries that are suitable for conventional salmon farming, and so far, so-called new technologies are long overdue. Personally, I think it will still take many years before they will come into their own and start making what I would say would be a most welcome difference in the supply, because the fact is that neither we nor the industry have been able to meet the market demand for this fantastic protein over the past few years, which is a pity for many reasons. One of the things holding us back is the increasing tax level we see in many of the countries where we operate, which is eating into our CapEx budgets.
I don't think I bite off more than I can chew when I say that the most controversial and talked about tax of them all is the Norwegian resource rent tax, also called the salmon tax. As Kristian just showed us, after having carefully priced up our extensive and diverse value chain in Norway, together with leading tax experts, our new estimate for this tax is now about 10% in steady state for Norwegian business across the value chain, on top of corporate tax. Please bear in mind that this is still a preliminary estimate and consequently subject to material uncertainty. Otherwise, we expect a stable realized blended farming cost for the fourth quarter, at least based upon the information we have today.
Finally, we have revised our long-term debt target in Mowi from EUR 1.4 billion to EUR 1.7 billion to better reflect the growth we have been through over the past few years, and thereby our improved debt service capacity. With these closing remarks, Kim, I think we are ready for the Q&A session. If Kristian can please join me on the stage.
Very good. So, just a quick question, from the web, from Alexander Jones, Bank of America. He has got a question about demand within food service. What are the latest demand trends you are seeing in the food service channel globally?
So, of course, food service has been great, I would say, since the end of the pandemic. We I would say we have been, to a certain degree, surprised by the strong development in that, in the sector, despite the cost of living crisis and various challenges. The recent development in Europe is that we see some positive volume developments in retail. And, of course, somewhat lower demand from food service. Because volumes in the market is down, so if you grow some place, then you need to see a reduction somewhere else. But all in all, food service has performed very strong and is still at a good level, I would say.
In the U.S., still, food service is holding up very well and drives increased volumes in the market because the retail is flattish in the U.S.
Christian Nordby, Arctic Securities. You've now had very strong growth in Norway for a number of years. What are your plans to expand this for the next five to six years under the current license regime? Are you solely dependent on new technologies, or are there other measures to grow for you?
No, we have intrinsic growth capacity, both in Norway and in the other jurisdictions, where we operate. So, so we can, as I said initially here, or during the presentation, we have still many cards up our sleeves, so there is more to come.
Thank you.
Knut Ivar Bakken, Sparebank 1 Markets. You mentioned El Niño a couple of times. Can you go a little bit into detail about the biological situation in Chile? Do you see any signs of algae now? What are you doing to minimize the risk?
Yeah, what about Chile? It's still early days, so this, I think we can talk about in February. We are much better prepared this time around than last time when we had this big catastrophe together with the rest of the industry, including bubble curtains, of course , aeration, oxygen infusion, et cetera, plus all the procedures connected to it. So we are in much better... We are much better prepared. We are in a much better shape, but that doesn't give you any guarantees. Chile is challenging with regard to algae in normal years, and as you correctly said there, and as we said many times during the presentation, we're having El Niño ongoing, so in the northern hemisphere, it has taken its toll.
Take Scotland, for instance, but also British Columbia. But how this will evolve or develop in Chile, we don't know. So that is really hard to say what the outcome of this is. But we are on the alert, we are prepared, and our clear intention is to do well as always. But in terms of timing, algae in Chile is more about February and March. And now we are November, so still early. So there are no signs now, which at least concerns me.
Okay, thank you. And then just another question: What is the split between east and west, in Canada for 2024 volumes?
The guidance? Yeah, so the normal, we are not that accurate about it, but let's say we are about 10,000 tons in east, and then the residual is west, plus, minus. So we always try to build in some slack in our guidance. As we have been through before, we like to deliver on our guidance, contrary to maybe some of our peers.
Thank you.
Concludes the questions.
Okay, then it only remains for me to thank you for the attention, both in the room and online, and I hope we see you back in February at our fourth quarter release. Meanwhile, take care and have a great day ahead. Thank you.