Pure Salmon has hired 35 new employees in Norway in just three months. In total, there were as many as 545 applicants for the positions.
After the aquaculture division of the Sandefjord-based company Krüger Kaldnes was sold last year to the Singapore-based group 8F Asset Management, which also owns the aquaculture company Pure Salmon Limited, the management of the new company, Pure Salmon Kaldnes AS, announced their goal to double the number of employees within two to three years in addition to establishing new locations both nationally and internationally. According to a press release, things have progressed much faster than that.
We are actually a year and a half ahead of schedule. Since December alone, we have hired a total of 35 employees, and over the coming year we will hire more than 30 additional people. This means we will have almost 120 employees when we enter 2023. We have spent a lot of time and energy telling people in other industries that aquaculture is the industry of the future, so it is very gratifying that as many as 65 percent of the new hires are coming from other sectors.
– Per Håkon Stenhaug, Director of Communications and HR at Pure Salmon Kaldnes
He says that the influx of applicants has been enormous, with a total of 545 applicants in just three months.
Snatched the Nofima Director
We are going to build facilities on every continent, and this is probably one of the reasons why we have received such great interest from both national and international applicants, explains Stenhaug, who adds that it is also very pleasing that 40 percent of the new hires are women. Our goal is clearly to take on industry responsibility in this area.
– Per Håkon Stenhaug, Director of Communications and HR at Pure Salmon Kaldnes
One of these women is Nofima director Synnøve Helland (53), who has helped build the renowned research station for the food research institute within aquaculture at Sunndal.
Helland holds a PhD in physiology and has worked at Nofima for over 19 years, both as a researcher and as head of the institute’s research station for the past six years. The 53-year-old, who is originally from Langevåg, will now become Global Head of Quality and HSE at Pure Salmon.
Among other things, Helland has also served on the board of EATiP (European Aquaculture Technology & Innovation Platform), which is a European collaboration platform for technology and innovation within aquaculture.