Regional market
Europe
The volume market. Short lead times, EEA documentation, and buyers who expect delivery reliability over price.
Norway sits inside the EEA, which removes most of the friction that makes seafood trade slow elsewhere: no import duty on the large majority of fresh and frozen products, harmonised veterinary controls, and road transport that reaches Paris, Hamburg or Milan within two to three days of harvest. That proximity is the market’s whole logic. European buyers are not paying for cheap fish; they are paying for fish that arrives on the day they said it would, in the grade they specified, with the paperwork already correct.
Most requested species
Atlantic salmon
Salmo salar
Norway’s largest seafood export. Continuous harvest, predictable size distribution, and airfreight to the main Asian and Gulf markets in one to three days.
- Season now
- Peak season
- Origin
- Farmed
- Condition
- Fresh, chilled · Frozen · Smoked
- Forms
- HOG · FLT · LOIN · PORT · VA
Atlantic cod
Gadus morhua
Barents Sea and Lofoten cod, quota-managed and MSC-certified. The skrei window from January to April is the year’s highest quality.
- Season now
- Available
- Origin
- Wild-caught · Farmed
- Condition
- Fresh, chilled · Frozen
- Forms
- WR · HG · FLT · LOIN · PORT · SPLT
Haddock
Melanogrammus aeglefinus
Finer flake and softer texture than cod, at a consistently lower landed cost. The default choice for UK and Northern European food service.
- Season now
- Available
- Origin
- Wild-caught
- Condition
- Fresh, chilled · Frozen · Smoked
- Forms
- HG · FLT · LOIN · PORT
Saithe
Pollachius virens
Abundant, well-managed and priced well below cod. The volume workhorse for processing, saltfish and food service.
- Season now
- Peak season
- Origin
- Wild-caught
- Condition
- Fresh, chilled · Frozen · Salted
- Forms
- HG · FLT · LOIN · PORT · SPLT
Cold-water prawn
Pandalus borealis
Cooked at sea within minutes of capture. Shell-on or peeled, sold on count per kilo.
- Season now
- Available
- Origin
- Wild-caught
- Condition
- Frozen
- Forms
- WR · PND
Stockfish
Gadus morhua
Cod air-dried on Lofoten racks from February. Graded by hand into more than twenty commercial classes.
- Season now
- Peak season
- Origin
- Wild-caught
- Condition
- Dried
- Forms
- WR · SPLT
Saltfish and klippfisk
Gadus morhua / Pollachius virens
Wet-salted and dried cod and saithe for the Portuguese, Brazilian and Caribbean trade. Sold on salt content, whiteness and cut.
- Season now
- Available
- Origin
- Wild-caught
- Condition
- Salted · Dried
- Forms
- FLT · SPLT
Preferred product forms
- Fresh HOG salmon and fillet, trim D and E
- Fresh cod and haddock loins for food service
- Frozen IQF portions for retail
- Stockfish top grades for Italy, saltfish for Portugal
Certificate and document requirements
- Health certificate from Mattilsynet
- Catch certificate for wild-caught consignments
- TRACES NT notification before arrival
- Commercial invoice, packing list, CMR
Transport modes
- Refrigerated road, 1–3 days to most of Western Europe
- Airfreight from Oslo for same-week Mediterranean delivery
- Short-sea reefer containers for frozen volume
Typical door-to-door transit as quoted by forwarders, counted from collection at the plant to delivery at the buyer’s address, including export handling and import clearance under normal conditions. Customs holds, inspection sampling and missed connections are not included. Last reviewed 15 September 2026.
- Packing and sizes
- 20 kg EPS with ice for fresh, retail-ready cartons for processed. Pallet labelling to GS1 standard is expected by most chains.
- Key ports
- Oslo · Ålesund · Rotterdam · Hamburg · Vigo · Gdańsk
- Buyer categories
- Retail chains and their central buying desks
- Food service distributors
- Secondary processors and smokehouses
- Payment risk
- Generally low. Open account at 30 days is common with established counterparties; we still recommend credit insurance on new accounts above a first-order threshold.
- Seasonal opportunity
- Lent and Christmas drive whitefish and cured products. Skrei has its own marketing window from January to April that European chains plan a year ahead.
- Working languages
- English · Norsk · Deutsch · Français · Español · Italiano · Polski
- Time zone
- CET / CEST