Russia's largest producer of salmon and trout Russian Aquaculture boosted its turnover 16-fold year-on-year to RUB4.9bn ($73.6mn) under IFRS, selling 9,600 tonnes of fish in 1H19, the company said on August 29. This made a large share of 37,900 tonnes of salmon and trout produced in Russia in the reporting period.

Net profit of the company increased 6.5-fold to RUB1bn, with net debt down from RUB3.7bn to RUB3.1bn as of June 30 2019. As reported by bne IntelliNews, Russian Aquaculture SPO’ed in 2017 and emerged as one of the largest players on fast-growing sanction-boosted Russian domestic fish market. 

"Eating salmon is hardwired into Russian genes,” Ilya Sosnov, CEO of Russian Aquaculture, told bne IntelliNews in an exclusive interview in the company’s headquarters on the edge of Moscow in 2018.

Back in 2014 the company's main business was distributing Norwegian salmon, but following the imports ban its trading business crashed and Aquaculture turned to producing its own fish. However, in the first two years it was plagued by diseased in its livestock, which ended in 2016.

With three harvests under its belt, the company is now on the way to stable output in the upcoming seasons, the company's representatives told Vedomosti daily. 

The company boasts that its Ebitda to 1 kg of sold fish in 2Q19 was €2.76/kg, beating Norwegian producers at €2.45/kg, and on par with Faroe and Scottish producers at €2.63/kg and €2.92/kg, respectively. 

In 2019 the company plans to take 17-20% of Russian grown salmon fish with an output of 18,000-20,000 tonnes, and boost it to 30,000-35,000 in medium-term perspective. The whole market is estimated at RUB50bn or 100,000 tonnes in volume terms.

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