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P/F Bakkafrost
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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2021-Q4

from 0
J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter Presentation of 2021 for Bakkafrost. We will present the summary of the quarter, a bit about the sales prices, segment information, financials and then a bit about the markets and outlook for the company and the industry. In this quarter, Bakkafrost harvested record high volumes in the Faroe Islands, both in this quarter, but also for the full-year. We harvested 20,694 tonnes in the Faroe Islands compared with 15,957 tonnes last year. In Scotland, we harvested 5,122 compared with 9,305 the year before -- [ the 5 tonnes ] the year before. This was also record high sales for the fourth quarter for our Feed segment and also record high for the full-year. The market balance seems to be strong, and there is a very tight supply outlook for the salmon market. In this quarter, our raw material purchase was 27,322 tonnes compared with 71,887 the year before.The revenues amounted to DKK 1,488 million compared with DKK 1,139 million the year before. We saw strong increased prices and very strong demand. The operational EBIT for the group amounted to DKK 120 million compared with DKK 86 million the year before. The margin was hampered by biological issues for the group.The cash flow from operations amounted to DKK 189 million in the quarter compared with minus DKK 107 million the year before. We had positive EBIT for all segment except Scotland, the Feed segment, high volumes and EBITDA, Farming Faroese more than tripled the margin compared with the year before.The Board of Directors will propose a dividend on the Annual General Meeting of DKK 5.14 per share.The operational EBIT for the Faroe Islands more than tripled from NOK 5.66 up to NOK 18.29 in this quarter. In Scotland, the margin was very poor, developed from minus NOK 8.4 down to minus NOK 55.95 per kilo. The VAP segment in Faroese at a margin of NOK 5.71 compared with NOK 17.31 the year before. And the EBITDA margin from our Feed operation was strong, 20.6% compared with 13.4% the year before.If we go to the markets or the sales and look at the sales price, in the quarter, we see a strong development. The quarterly sales price in average for the size 4 to 5 was NOK 60.71, which is NOK 16.48 were up from the year before. And this is in a quarter where the supply increased around 5%. So indicating a strong market, and we see also the development continued in the first quarter '22 with all-time high salmon prices over the late weeks -- last weeks.If we go into the segment information, Bakkafrost Faroe Islands delivered a record high volume from our farming operations. The volume increased 30% from 15,957 to 20,694 tonnes. Full-year growth of 33% from 67,200 compared with 50,700 the year before. The average weight dropped 10% from 5.4 to 4.9 kilos in the quarter. This was in the Farming segment North, the average weight was 4.5 kilos. In Kunoyarnes, the average weight was 4.9. Kunoyarnes delivered 28% of the volume in the quarter. Lamba Wick delivered 8% at 4.6, but the big miss is in Haraldssund, which we had harvest in the third quarter, but also continued for the first 2 weeks in October at 3.3 kilos. And this was the synchronization of A72 and A73, where 2 sites were synchronized in order to have a better operation going forward. And both sites were stocked again in December with smolt. And we expect that this -- the cost of this synchronization will eventually be paid back with a stronger performance from these 2 sites going forward, although starting to harvest by the end of this year or in the first quarter '23. 43% of the harvest in this quarter was from [indiscernible], where average weight was 5.4 kilos. This is in the West. And 12% of the harvest in the quarter was from the South Island at 5.8 kilo in average from [ HOG 18 ].Bakkafrost Scotland has been through a very, very tough period. Average weight in the fourth quarter dropped 20% from 3.7 to 3.0 kilo in average. Volume dropped 45% in the fourth quarter to 5,122 tonnes versus 9,305 tonnes last year. Full-year dropped 15% in volume, 29,700 versus 35,000 in the year before. The smolt transfer in the Faroe Islands was 5.1 million versus 5.5 million the year before, 8% down. Average weight of transfer smolt increased 8% from 343 gram to 371 grams in the quarter, all-time high. For full-year, 14.4 million smolt were released with an average weight of 382 grams versus 14.3 million at 318 gram the year before. And this will eventually reduce the production time. In Scotland, 4.2 million smolt were released in the quarter at 105 gram, which is also all-time high in Scotland, first time above 100 gram. Sea water temperatures in the Faroe Islands were 0.3 degrees higher in the fourth quarter this year compared with the year before.The revenues in the Faroese Farming division increased 84% from DKK 600 million in the fourth quarter '20 to DKK 1,111 million in the fourth quarter '21. Operational margin increased 351% from DKK 63 million to NOK 282 million, mainly driven by good sales price achievement, which was about NOK 16 per kilo for the 4 to 5 kilo fish. However, some challenges in the quarter prevented the division from excellent numbers. This was mainly due to 2 causes. One was the synchronization of Haraldsund and Vidareidi, which caused harvest of smaller fish, around 10% of the volume in the quarter. And the second was the treatment vessel, Martin, which was delayed in the upgrade delivery in the summer, which caused the sea lice situation to become more severe than planned and causing higher mortalities from treatments.In Scotland, the revenues were up 44% from DKK 389 million to DKK 218 million in the quarter. Operational margin dropped 296% from minus DKK 54 million to minus DKK 214 million, driven by continued issues on 7 sites from mass mortality that started in the third quarter, impacted with PD, AGD and micro-jellyfish. We are disappointed about the numbers on the development in Scotland, but confident that we will do much better long term as our investments and updated procedures will start to make impact. We have already seen positive impact from Loch Striven and Loch Fyne with our new operational procedures.The operational performance in the Faroe Islands was good, not excellent in the fourth quarter. The margin increased from NOK 5.66 to NOK 18.29. In Scotland, the performance was extremely much affected by the exceptional mass mortality event and issues on totally 7 sites, which has caused margin to drop from minus NOK 8.41 to minus NOK 55.95 in the quarter. There are still logistical impacts from COVID-19, which affects costs of transportation and availability negatively.In the fourth quarter, farming operations were impacted in the Faroe Islands with DKK 45 million of exceptional mortality. And this was treatment vessel Martin upgrade delay in the summer, which caused higher pressure on sea lice treatment and higher mortality. The exceptional mortality is mainly driven by the treatment of ready-to-harvest fish. Our capacity in 2022 will be better and the planning process will be much better. This will be both with our present equipment, upgrades and procedures and also with the new freshwater possibilities with our new vessel Bakkafossur, which we will have in operation in the summer and will be positive for our fish welfare.Impacts from exceptional mortality in the Faroe Islands was NOK 2.93 per kilo and reduced the operational EBIT from NOK 21.22 to NOK 18.29. The impacts were on 3 sites, A12 Kunoyarnes, A13 Bordoyavik, A63 Arnefjord. The development into the first quarter has not continued with the same numbers. So we expect this to be better in 2022.In Scotland, we saw in the late summer on the West Coast of Scotland, which faced an unprecedented challenge from blooms, which was related to micro-jellyfish. This was alongside a prolonged period of warming temperatures in some Loch systems, which caused significant challenges to our operations. The exceptional mortality amounted to DKK 179 million in this quarter, corresponding to NOK 47 per kilo. Significant mortalities of jellyfish in the second half of 2021 in all areas. Gill health issues on top of which there were blooms, which caused mass mortality. The implications were widely spread in all regions and has never before been seen this kind of issues so devastating to the farming operation in Scotland. And we see that it is crucial to improve the strength and quality of our operations.We are going to see results from improved quality of our operations as we go forward. In the short term, will implementing early warning indicators give us some better position? More capacity is the main and strategy to maintain a strong biology. Gradually, we will see robust large smolt. We will see reduced time in the sea and reduced need for mechanical treatments. Us -- in areas where we have recently stocked under the new operational strategy, we are now seeing fundamental improvements. This includes Loch Striven, Loch Fyne, Arran, Harris, which are all outperforming historical experience. All new stocking in Scotland is under our new farming strategy, and we have secured additional freshwater capacity resources directly with fleet owners vastly increasing our capacity going forward.Our VAP segment sold slightly less volumes in the fourth quarter versus the year before, 1% down from 6,688 to 6,603 tonnes. However, the revenues increased 25% from DKK 287 million to all-time high revenues DKK 359 million. The operational EBIT dropped from DKK 80 million to DKK 28 million due to increased raw material costs as internal buying price traded in line with spot price development from farm increased. The EBIT per kilo dropped from NOK 17.31 to NOK 5.71 in this quarter. 31% of the volume in the quarter was sold internally in our VAP operations, down from 43% in the same quarter the year before.Our Feed department generated all-time high revenues of DKK 1,659 million for the full-year versus DKK 1.4 billion the year before. And in the fourth quarter, NOK 433 million compared with DKK 359 million the year before. EBITDA increased 86% to DKK 89 million in the quarter versus DKK 48 million the year before. The margin increased from 13% to 21% in the quarter. Fish feed sold was also record high for the fourth quarter and for the full-year, which was 128,489 tonnes. Raw materials sourced were low in the quarter, 27,000 tonnes versus 72,000 in the quarter the year before. For the full-year, raw material sourcing was second low of all years since 2012, but the first quarter '22 is all-time high. The reason for the blue whiting starting -- the season of the blue whiting started later this season, which caused a delay in start of catch.Fish feed sold in the fourth quarter was record high 32,527 tonnes, 5% up from last year. Now almost all feed is used internally, which makes our fleet operation more like a cost center. Fishmeal and fish oil prices have fluctuated somewhat on a relatively high level over the last couple of years, especially fish oil is all-time high. But compared with other raw material costs, marine ingredients have not increased as much in cost as many others.And now, Hogni Jakobsen will take us through the financials.

H
Hogni Dahl Jakobsen
Chief Financial Officer

If we look at group's revenue in this quarter, we had a strong 31% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Our operational EBIT also had a comparable increase, relatively speaking, amounting to DKK 120 million in this quarter. The negative fair value adjustments in this quarter were DKK 140 million, and that's primarily driven by changes in the volume, the size distribution of the biomass remaining time to harvest, FX rates and so on. We paid DKK 49 million in revenue taxes, which also was a significant increase from the same quarter last year. And that is due to higher volumes being harvested, but also the increasing salmon price. The revenue tax is linked to the FishPool index. Profit after tax was DKK 3 million in this quarter.If we look at the results on a quarterly basis and look at 2021 as a whole, our operational EBIT has varied quite significantly throughout 2021. And we see that we had a very strong first half of the year and a very weak second half of the year, and that's primarily driven by the biology in Scotland, which has caused significant losses, not only in the fourth quarter, but also in the third quarter as we have reported on previously. The adjusted earnings per share in 2021 totaled DKK 10.28. And as our dividend policy states, 30% to 50% of the earnings will be paid out as dividends. So the Board has decided to propose to the Annual General Meeting in -- on the 29th of April that we will pay out DKK 5.14 in dividends for 2021.A short glimpse at the balance sheet reveals that our property, plant and equipment has increased by DKK 668 million and now amount to roughly DKK 4.9 billion by the end of this quarter. Our biological assets increased by DKK 331 million and amounted to just short of DKK 2.5 billion by the end of this quarter, including DKK 605 million in value -- fair value adjustments. Inventory decreased in this quarter, whereas receivables increased significantly by 68% and amounted to DKK 824 million in this quarter. Cash and cash equivalents amounted to DKK 509 million, and equity increased by DKK 618 million and amounted to excess of DKK 9.3 billion. Equity ratio reduced from 66% to 64% and the total equity and liabilities balanced at DKK 14.6 billion in this quarter.Cash flow from operations have improved by DKK 296 million in this quarter compared to the same quarter last year and amounted to DKK 189 million. Cash flow from investments were minus DKK 298 million and cash flow from financing reduced by DKK 235 million and amounted to DKK 237 million in this quarter. Hence the net change in cash in this quarter was positive with DKK 136 million, and we had DKK 509 million at the end of the quarter.During this quarter, we have increased our net interest-bearing debt with DKK 140 million. And our net interest-bearing debt at the end of the quarter was DKK 2,126 million. The main change is the negative cash flow from investments amounting to DKK 290 million, therefore, DKK 54 million in paid taxes and the positive cash flow from operations amounting to DKK 198 million. In December, we signed a term sheet with our existing banks, Nordea, Rabobank and DNB for a new 5-year loan facility -- credit facility of EUR700 million and with an additional accordion option of EUR150 million. So sustainability-linked financing. And this agreement is being closed during this week. With reference to this new facility agreement, our undrawn committed facilities by the end of the quarter was around DKK 3 billion.If we look at some main events from ESG and the sustainability work in this quarter, we are pleased to announce that we have made new commitments in regards to reducing our Scope 3 emissions by 52% per product sold and with 2020 as a base year. Previously, we have also announced our commitment in regards to Scope 1 and 2 reduction by 50% in 2030. And now we add on with the Scope 3 emission targets -- reduction targets for 2030 as well. This is in line with the Science Based Targets in order to ensure that our planet does not heat with more than 1.5 degree. And we will soon submit these targets to SBTi for approval.Another main event in this quarter was, of course, also the now sustainability-linked financing that we have, which means that all our financing is linked to sustainability targets. We have in collaboration with our banks set some targets on survivability of the fish and the feed conversion factor, and also ambitious targets for our own production of renewable energy to which the finance agreement is linked. And finally, we also won an award in this quarter as we were announced as the National Winner of Energy Globe Awards for our biogas plant, Forka.And then I will leave it back to you, Regin, to tell us about markets and the outlook.

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

In the quarter, we saw a 5% increase in total harvest, higher growth than expected in the fourth quarter has negatively impacted the supply in the first half of '22, some fish seemed to have been pulled. Some countries have harvested smaller fish in the fourth quarter, which indicates that fish was pulled between the years. In Faroe Islands, we harvested all-time high quantity in the full-year, but also in the fourth quarter, up to 30,000 versus 21,000 tonnes the year before. And full-year, 31% growth from 72,000 to 95,000 tonnes gutted weight. For Faroe Islands, in general, mean weight of harvested fish was 4.9 kilo for the full-year and -- versus 5.2 the year before and 5.5 when it was all-time high in 2019. Smolt transfer in the Faroe Islands was totally 20.9 -- sorry, 20.3 million in the year versus 20.1 million the year before. But mean weight of transfer smolt in the Faroe Islands are all-time high at 350 gram for the full-year versus 332 gram a year before.Feed conversion rate for the Faroe Islands for the full-year is all-time high, and this is of harvested fish groups, 1.07 versus 1.08 the year before. An average for the last 5 to 6 years from -- sorry, the last 10 years, the level was between 1.12 and 1.15. Cycle time per generation in the Faroe Islands in 2021 for all harvested fish groups was 13.9 months versus 14.8 months in 2020 and 18 months in general in the period in 2014 and at that time. So this dropped from 18 months down to 13.9 months over the last 6, 7 years. Mortality in 2021 for Faroe Islands in general was 14%, flat from '20, but slightly down from 2019. This level for full generation was around 11% to 12% in the years from 2012 to 2017. And now I refer to full cycle mortality, not a yearly mortality but a full cycle mortality. And this increase over these years has mainly been related to more strict lice handling regimes, which takes some time to adapt into operation before mortality levels are expected to come down again as results of new initiatives will emerge.The global demand for salmon is high. The market consumed 3.1% more in this quarter and 8.8% for the full-year. Most important salmon markets are EU and the U.S., which takes around 67% of the global volume. The EU market is -- in share is a large share of the growth from -- in Europe, a large year of the growth from the supply from European farmers were exported out of Europe. In U.S. market, we had a record high growth in the year, 65,500 tonne from 505,000 to 570,000 tonnes, which corresponds to 13% growth last year. This growth came simultaneously with logistic cost supply disruptions and record high transport costs absorbed by customers on top of increased product price.For Bakkafrost, the Chinese market is next after Europe and U.S. Also a very important market with 4% of global volume. Despite huge impact by COVID-19 and logistic issues, the market had an impressive growth of 31% in the fourth quarter, corresponding with 3% for the full-year.Other markets in general have developed positively with 5% full-year growth and 4% growth in the fourth quarter. These markets are also important for Bakkafrost and have a high focus for us to develop further. The export value of salmon from Norway increased 8% in 2021 from DKK 57.77 per kilo -- to DKK 57.77 from DKK 53.29. All in all, this indicates that demand for salmon has been very strong in 2021.The supply setback has been driven by a combination of higher-than-expected harvest in the fourth quarter 2021 and issues in several countries where algae bloom, storms and other events have reduced biomass for harvest in 2022. Feeding in the fourth quarter was between 3% and 12% down in all production countries, except North America and Iceland. This results of our development where supply in 2022 is expected to have dropped 60,000 tonnes from our expectations 3 months ago, and this means that there will be a global setback of supply in the first half of 2022 of around 7%. And in the second half of the year, the supply growth will be 6% in supplied volumes. However, the total harvest for the full-year 2022 seems to be lower than in 2021, around 0.3%. This means that there is a tight supply outlook in the market, which will lead to high prices as we saw on indication on the previous page. For Bakkafrost, we expect to harvest 103,000 tonnes in 2022, 68,000 Faroese and 35,000 in Scotland.Our issues in Scotland are not finished in the fourth quarter. There are also some issues in January with high cost of harvested fish. The mortality levels are back on normal levels, but the cost of our production in January and probably also February will be higher, which means that it will impact our margins in Scotland. In Faroese, things are back to normal in the first quarter.In our smolt releases in 2022, we expect to release slightly more than last year or more or less on the same level, 25.7 million compared to 25.5 million, 14.9 million in Faroese and 10.8 million in Scotland. We have continued with contracts with many of our clients. Contracts are mainly pulled forward, but prices have increased. At the moment, of course, spot prices are higher than contract prices, which causes the VAP to have losses. We expect to sell more or less the same quantity of feed in 2022 as the year before. And as we have had good catches of blue whiting in January, we also expect the raw materials for our fishmeal and oil department to be more or less on the same level as the year before.On our Capital Markets Day, we announced our plans for the next 5 years to reduce the risk of our operations. Biology is the biggest risk as we see these days. We will have a strong focus on improving our operations with targeted investments to get this development as soon as possible and also to improve our efficiency. On the next pages, we see a glimpse of the expectation -- the exceptional investments Bakkafrost has under construction as we speak in order to reduce the risk and increase efficiency and creating organic growth over the next 7 to 8 years. And to mirror our ambition for Scotland, we will change the company name for our Scottish operation to Bakkafrost Scotland. This year, we will see a transitional year of our 5-year strategy in Scotland.And now we are open to take any questions. Please go ahead, Nils Olav.

N
Nils Olav Furre Thommesen
Analyst

Just a question on the cost in -- on the Faroese going forward. You mentioned that you have good growth and low FCR. So if we adjust for the mortality in the fourth quarter, how should we expect the cost to develop going forward?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Yes. As we showed on one of the graphs in this quarter, we had close to DKK 3 increased cost level because of higher mortality. We expect this to come down. There are -- there might be some increased costs in the fourth quarter because of some of the fish groups are still in the water, which was impacted. But we see strong indicators that we will reduce these risks as we go forward in Faroe Islands. We see several of our initiatives which are taking us in the right direction.When we talk about costs, we see also, of course, that inflation is part of the cost drive. There is an inflation in the industry and feed costs have been driven up by increased raw material prices, but also other costs. This has impacted also our operations somewhat. Of course, the biggest driver on that has been transportation, which has been on a significantly higher level. We don't expect transportation to come back on pre-COVID levels in the short term. So that will have some implications. And so far, we see that the market is accepting prices on higher levels than before, which, to some extent, at least will offset this development. Carl-Emil?

C
Carl-Emil Kjølås Johannessen

A quick question on the smolt releases in Scotland. You guided on 10.8 million for 2022, which I guess is fairly in line with '21. And the size of smolt, at least in Q4 was around 100 gram. What should we expect in terms of sizes on the smolt in 2022? And when will you release the first smolt from the new Applecross facility?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Yes. The Applecross facility is under construction, and we see some small deliveries from the first building stages, AP 1 to 3. The AP 4 will be finished later this year. And the big impact will be when that will start up, and we will see that mainly in '23. And then AP 5 will be done also in '23. That's when we will see the big development taking place. That's where -- when we are going to be able to increase our average weight of smolt significantly. So in '23, it will be even more exciting for our smolt sizes. So this year, it will not be a big step in Scotland with the size, but some development, hopefully. And there's another hand I can't see the name. Please go ahead.

C
Christian Olsen Nordby
Equity Research Analyst

Yes. Christian Nordby, Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a question regarding the synchronization of sites in the Faroese. Can you elaborate a little bit on how you came in this situation in the first place?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

This situation came when we had the ISA issues in A73, I think it was in 2016. I think it was in 2016. And that caused our synchronization to go out of sync. So eventually, we took the decision to harvest this fish to get back in sync because we see a significant negative development with sea lice on the areas when they are out of sync. And of course, the risk of disease is also higher when we are out of sync.

C
Christian Olsen Nordby
Equity Research Analyst

And on your harvest weight, should we expect harvest weights in the Faroese in Q1 to come back to sort of previous high levels? Or should they still be a bit lower than what like we've seen in the past few quarters?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

We are still a bit lower, and this is a bit driven by the need to be in line with guidelines on sea lice. In order to be in line, especially for larger fish at the moment, at least, we don't want to treat them. So we have to harvest them. So that means that we need sometimes to harvest fish at 4.5 kilos instead of 5.5 kilos. So unfortunately, for the time being, this will continue. Hopefully, when we will have better capacity with freshwater and also with other means, we can increase the average weight again. Alex Jones, please go ahead.

A
Alexander Jones
Analyst

Just a question on Scotland costs. You alluded to sort of high mortality in January, February. If you could give any sort of quantification, that would be helpful? And then in sort of the full-year, can you give a sense of how much of a difference the new freshwater treatment capacity will have, should we think about costs being back towards 2020 levels once that starts off?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Yes, that's a good question. We have strong indicators that the development that we now are in -- with our updated operational procedures and also when we will have the capacity for freshwater treatment that this will have a significant positive impact. And the big impact will, of course, be to make the fish surviving instead of too much mortality. So it will have a big impact, but it's difficult for me right now in the middle of the storm to quantify the impact. So unfortunately, I cannot give a certain number. Yes, please go ahead, Nils Olav.

N
Nils Olav Furre Thommesen
Analyst

Yes. One more for me. Just on average harvest weights in Scotland, should we expect them to be lower than last year, given what's happened throughout January and February? Or are we reversing back to the trend of last year?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

We are very focused to get the average weight up. So that has a huge priority for us in Scotland. And one more hand, is it Christian or someone else?

S
Stein Alexander Aukner
Senior Analyst

It's Alex from DNB.

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Alex. Go ahead, Alex.

S
Stein Alexander Aukner
Senior Analyst

So a few questions, if I may. First of all, how will the harvest pattern for Bakkafrost look in 2022? Will it be very back-end loaded? Or any comments there?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We have probably more in the second half of the year, probably a bit more in second half of the year. I don't have the exact numbers to give you, but I would say a bit back-end loaded, but...

S
Stein Alexander Aukner
Senior Analyst

Okay. That's fine. So apologizes if you actually answered this during the call, I dropped out for a few minutes. But in terms of the challenges in the Faroe Islands with sea lice, I mean, are there any structural changes sort of using more high-risk sites, et cetera? Or is it simply the fact that you have grown volumes more than your support capacity can handle and hence, you have these increased sea lice issues?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

No, as I referred to earlier, last summer, when we did the upgrade of our treatment vessel, Martin, the plan was that they should be back in operation in June in order to prevent -- it's very important to be on top of the situation before the fall. But due to COVID, there were some delays in supplies, which caused the vessel to be in operation only in mid-July. And that caused us to be a bit on the back of the issues during the whole period in the fall. And it's very important to be in front of this during the fall. And when you are a bit behind, in our case, we -- this means that we have to treat a bit more tough. And also we have to refer to the sea lice requirements in Faroese have been more [Technical Difficulty] and this means that we have to treat more than before. So the combination of these 2 has been bad for us in 2021 in the fall. We expect that now we will be better prepared for the fall this year. And also now we will have freshwater capacity, which we think is quite needed. We see also in order to have a good fish health. It is good to treat the gills of the fish prior to sea lice or in combination. And that capacity will be in place now because in the fall, there are always also some gill issues. The combination of some gill issues and sea lice treatments is bad, that's what we experienced very much in Scotland. So we expect this to be positive.Also, now we will see more and more reduced cycle time in Faroese. Now when the small size is as big as now, the time in the sea will be much shorter, which means that the need for treatment will be lower. So we think that things are going to move positively in Faroese. We think that we have enough capacity, especially now when we get the freshwater treatment capacity also on top of what we already have.

S
Stein Alexander Aukner
Senior Analyst

Okay. So final question from my side. In terms of the HoReCa market, the hotels and restaurants, et cetera, is that now back to pre-COVID levels? Or how much left -- do we have left to go to sort of get back to sort of pre-COVID normalized levels?

J
Johan Regin Jacobsen
Chief Executive Officer

We see a very strong demand in all markets, very strong. Customers are accepting prices never seen before. And for many markets, you must remember that this is with very high transportation costs. So the demand seems to be very strong, even at these prices. So the combination of a strong retail market, which has been developed during the COVID-19 in combination with the HoReCa market coming back, foodservice in all markets is a very strong push for prices and demand.Good. Any other question? No? Thank you very much.