Norwegian Group invests €80M in Sines

A Norwegian group is to invest €80 million in the port town of Sines, near Setúbal on a fish nursery to raise Norwegian cod and salmon.

The project involves the setting up of two fish farms on a site the equivalent of 10 football fields at the Sines Industrial and Logistics Zone. The company behind the project is Maiken Foods and it expects to begin construction at the end of the year.
The announcement was made by the group in a communiqué after the contract was signed on Friday for the lease of 10 hectares of land at Sines. The aquaculture project will apply an innovative technology to breed salmon and cod in tanks developed by Maiken Foods, as applied in similar projects in other geographies.
The project foresees a nursery to raise 6,000 tonnes of fish per year. In addition to Portugal, the main destinations for the fish will be other EU countries, particularly Spain and France, says the group which will begin construction in the last quarter of 2022.
According to Maiken Foods, fifty jobs will be created in the initial construction phase, with 200 full-time jobs when the project is up and running, adding that the company will start with salmon farming which will absorb half of the total €80 million investment.
“In Sines we’ve found the ideal conditions to set up our project, not just because of its access to sea water, but also because of the very competitive price of renewable energy, deciding factors for our production process,” said the founder and CEO of Maiken Foods, Arve Gravdal.