Nofima will deliver three annual impact analysis reports of the seafood industry. The main analysis will give an overall picture of the entire seafood industry, while the other two will provide a detailed focus on the aquaculture and wild fish industries.

Last update

Read in Norwegian

Start

25. Jun 2023

End

31. Jan 2026

Funded by

FHF – Norwegian Seafood Research Fund

Background

For close to 20 years, the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF) has prepared impact assessment and value creation analyses for the Norwegian seafood industry. These reports have quantified the industry’s contributions to GDP and employment rates broken down into the fishing fleet, aquaculture sector, fishing industry and supplier industry, as well as ripple effects from all of these.

The analyses have received significant attention and provided valuable information to the industry, public administration and society in general. 

The seafood industry has gone from accounting for 0.8% of the Norwegian GDP in 2004 to around 3% in recent years, which means that the industry’s importance role in national value creation has more than tripled during that period. The impact assessment and value creation analyses for the fisheries and aquaculture industry represent a good opportunity to highlight the importance and value of Norway’s most important sustainable industry.  

From recent years of experience, we have seen that there is potential for developing the associated methodologies and procedures to provide results that are more precise and relevant for both the seafood industry and other stakeholders, such as the public administration and politicians. 

Goal

The main objective of this project will be “to provide an overview of the seafood industry’s impact on GDP and employment, as well as ripple effects from the industry”. This will be done

  • At the national level for the entire fisheries and aquaculture industry 
  • For the fishing fleet and processing industry in the wild fish industry (for all sectors: clipfish, stockfish, salted fish, fillets, fresh-packed products, pelagic fish, shellfish, onboard production and multisectoral and direct export actors) 
  • For the aquaculture industry (including the processing sector as well as salmon, trout, cod, halibut, turbot, shellfish and seaweed/algae) 
  • For the supplier industry which serves all parts of the seafood industry

Sub goals

  • Improve the population included in the analyses (annually) 
  • Improve the source data for the impact assessment analyses (annually) 
  • Improve the modelling system being used (annually) 
  • Delivery of analyses in accordance with the delivery schedule 
  • Dissemination of results 

The project will be organized into six work packages aimed at each of the sub-goals as well as project management.

The impact assessment analyses should benefit both the industry and administration, which has proved to be the case in previous years by the great demand for knowledge dissemination in the form of lectures, opinion pieces and media coverage.

How we work

We apply improved company data as a basis, with a more precise and quality-assured delimitation of which companies to include, and with a more granular classification by activity type.

We will also expand our overview of companies’ expenditures, which will provide a more precise basis for the impact assessment models.

In addition, we will develop a model with a more accurate distribution of the estimated ripple effects, both geographically and between the various industries and different parts of the value chains. In order to provide a better and more precise interpretation of the results, we also need to gain a deeper understanding of the context by studying the driving forces and causal relationships behind developments in value creation and the wider impacts.  

With better methodology, the impact can be identified more precisely. At the same time, the use of the model can be expanded, for example to show the consequences that various management approaches have had, or may have, for the ripple effects and value creation in different parts of the seafood industry.

Publications