After East Coast Exit, Will Mowi Sell Its B.C. Salmon Farms?

The world’s largest salmon farmer has sold its Atlantic Canadian business as its West Coast operations remain under strategic review and caught in Ottawa’s plan to end conventional ocean salmon farming by 2029.

Analysis
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

Mowi’s decision to sell its Atlantic Canadian salmon farming business has intensified questions about the future of its remaining operations in British Columbia.

The company announced today that it will sell Mowi Canada East to family-owned Cooke Inc. for C$225 million on a debt-free basis. The transaction includes farms, hatcheries and processing facilities in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The operations employ about 250 people and hold approximately 9,000 gutted weight tonnes of standing salmon biomass. Mowi said the sale will strengthen its farming portfolio and allow it to focus more closely on core salmon-producing regions. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval and due diligence.

The company will record an estimated C$140-million write-down and lower its 2026 global harvest guidance from 605,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes.

Cooke CEO Glenn Cooke described the acquisition as a growth opportunity and pledged to stabilize and reinvest in the operations by integrating them with the company’s existing Atlantic Canadian network.

“This is an exciting growth opportunity for our Atlantic Canada operations,” Cooke said.

“We look forward to welcoming Mowi Canada East’s 250 employees to Cooke, and to working together to grow the sector and sustainably farm Atlantic salmon for customers in this region and beyond.”

The sale represents a change in ownership rather than a retreat from salmon farming in Atlantic Canada, where provincial governments continue to support the sector as a source of food production, exports and rural employment.

The implications for British Columbia are less certain.

Mowi Canada West remains under a strategic review launched after the former Trudeau government, under pressure from anti-salmon farming activists, announced that conventional marine salmon farming licences would not be renewed beyond June 30, 2029.

The Federal policy being evaluated now by the Carney government, was imposed despite extensive government and independent research concluding that B.C.’s salmon farms pose no more than a minimal risk to wild salmon stocks.

If the policy remains in place, it will shut down B.C.’s remaining ocean salmon farming sector, eliminate thousands of jobs and strip coastal and First Nations communities of vital income, investment and economic activity.

Mowi CEO Ivan Vindheim said in August 2024 that the company would examine all available options for its B.C. operations before deciding what action to take.

Its latest annual report describes the B.C. business, which produces about 20,000 tonnes of salmon annually, as having “highly uncertain future prospects.”

Mowi employs more than 300 people in the province and operates an integrated network of hatcheries, ocean farms and processing infrastructure centred on Vancouver Island and the central coast.

The company produces more than one-third of British Columbia’s farmed salmon, making any decision to sell, scale back or leave the province significant for workers, suppliers and First Nations partners.

Mowi’s global growth strategy makes the uncertainty surrounding B.C. increasingly difficult to ignore.

The company reported record revenues of approximately C$9.15 billion and record harvest volumes of about 559,000 tonnes in 2025. It is expanding in Norway, Chile, Scotland and Iceland, where regulatory systems allow companies to plan, invest and grow.

Mowi expects production in Chile to rise from 78,000 tonnes in 2025 to 95,000 tonnes by 2029. Scottish production is projected to reach 80,000 tonnes, while its Icelandic business is expected to grow to 25,000 tonnes over the same period.

British Columbia is heading in the opposite direction.

Farm-raised salmon production in the province has fallen by more than 40 percent since 2015 as Ottawa removed licences and closed productive farming areas. Mowi has already recognized more than C$86 million in impairment losses linked to deteriorating regulatory conditions in B.C.

Its Canadian operations recorded an operational loss of approximately C$63.5 million in 2025, compared with a profit of about C$5.4 million the previous year.

Selling Canada East removes an underperforming region and brings in C$225 million. Selling Canada West would complete Mowi’s departure from Canadian salmon farming and remove one of the most politically uncertain jurisdictions from its portfolio.

There is no indication that a B.C. transaction is imminent. Canada West was not mentioned in the sale announcement, and the Atlantic deal does not confirm that Mowi has found or is negotiating with a buyer.

Still, the broader direction is difficult to dismiss.

Canada’s salmon farming industry is already undergoing major consolidation.

In 2025, Mitsubishi-owned Cermaq agreed to acquire Grieg Seafood’s operations in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Norway in a transaction valued at approximately C$990 million. The deal included Grieg’s 11 B.C. ocean farms, its Gold River hatchery and its Vancouver-based North American sales operation.

With Grieg being absorbed by Cermaq and Mowi’s Atlantic assets moving to Cooke, Canadian salmon production is becoming concentrated among fewer large operators.

Any buyer for Mowi Canada West would need the financial strength to manage substantial infrastructure, First Nations agreements and a business whose federal licences expire in three years.

British Columbia’s salmon farms generate more than C$1.17 billion in annual economic activity and support about 4,560 full-time jobs. Every remaining farm operates under an agreement with the First Nation in whose territory it is located.

Mowi’s partnership with the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation has lasted more than 25 years and stands as one of Canada’s strongest examples of Indigenous economic reconciliation. Salmon farming provides more than half of the remote coastal Nation’s revenue and has helped support full employment in Klemtu.

Ottawa’s proposed transition to closed-containment production offers no proven replacement at the scale, cost or speed required.

The current federal policy leaves Mowi with few attractive choices: invest in a business Ottawa plans to eliminate, sell at a price weakened by regulatory risk, or wait for the Carney government to replace the 2029 deadline with a science-based licensing framework.

The Canada East sale shows Mowi is prepared to dispose of operations that no longer fit its global priorities.

Whether British Columbia is next will depend on whether Ottawa gives the company, its workers and its First Nations partners a reason to stay.

Main image shows a Mowi Canada East salmon farm