Karsten was one of the aquaculture pioneers when, together with his brother and father, he built a small freezer room and nailed together the first cages in 1972. They had no employees and worked long days with rowboats and raw muscle power.  

– It was almost like being out fishing; we had to sleep the hours we could take off, he reminisces. 

Karsten doesn’t hide the fact that they sometimes doubted whether this – in the eyes of many others – reckless venture really had any merit. 

– It hasn’t exactly gone smoothly all the time, and we have suffered great losses in periods, but we have gotten through it. And today, we are a completely different company than when we started, he says. 

In the beginning, all the cages were lined up along the shore, just a stone’s throw from the garden fence. Today, production has moved out into the open sea and is spread across as many as 18 locations down the coast from Trøndelag.  

In the beginning, they traveled around and sold the fish themselves, while today two million people eat MÃ¥søval salmon every single week. And we wonder if the old founder is a little proud of that.  

– I am proud that my boys want to continue running this! That the life’s work – which my father and brother helped start – that a new generation is interested in it. I think that’s almost the greatest thing of all!