26 eager trainees met for the first time at Marineholmen. The trainees are all employed by a company for a year, and the group is broadly composed with participants from Lerøy, Marine Harvest, Cargill, Grieg Seafood, MSD, Thommesen Law Firm and the Norwegian Seafood Council. After an introductory round, Tanja Hoel presented the cluster's work and gave the trainees an overview of the seafood industry's value chain. Andreas Morland then gave an inspiring presentation about what it's like to work as a founder in the industry. It was interesting for the trainees to hear how his idea/project has now become a business concept.
At Marineholmen there is a vibrant entrepreneurial environment and many opportunities to develop an idea into a business concept, and by being part of the environment you will have access to advisors and meeting places where experience and expertise can be shared. BTO first gave us a presentation of the exciting things going on before we were given a tour of OIA, Maker Space and I-lab's RAS facility.
A lot can be learned in meeting rooms, but it is only when you actually see a fish farm that you can understand how everything is connected, so the next stop on the program was the Coastal Museum in Øygarden and Blom Visningsanleg.
On Thursday, our partners gave presentations about the different links in the value chain. At SalmoBreed we were introduced to breeding and genetics, at Cargill we had a presentation about feed. At Cargill, one of the Fjord Year trainees gave a presentation, and it was inspiring for the trainees to see that after just one year, you can get a role as a product manager. At Marine Harvest, we got to know the production process and at Ocean Quality we learned how they work with sales and marketing.
Thursday evening we first got a tour of the Norwegian Fisheries Museum, before the evening ended with a delicious fish dinner at Von Tangen Fiskebar.
Friday morning started with a presentation from Salmon Group on how local farmers are stronger together, before Olav Lekve gave the trainees an introduction to the role and mandate of the administration. Then they went to the Institute of Marine Research and NIFES.
Thank you to all our partners for their great contributions to the program, and we look forward to the next gathering, which will take place in Trondheim on January 17-19, 2018. The theme for this gathering will be research and technology, and we will visit NTNU, SINTEF, Frøya and various supplier companies.
Read more about Seafood Trainee here.
