Overseas
Rabobank estimates that Chilean Atlantic salmon production could grow by 4–6% annually, compared with 1–3% in the rest of the world. This is neither a forecast that Chile will overtake Norway nor a warning of imminent oversupply. The real turning point will depend on whether producers can make mortality, harvest weights and costs more predictable while building new markets for coho salmon. Administrative reform may encourage investment, but biological and climate risks can still interrupt the trajectory quickly.
Chile no longer needs to prove that it can produce salmon. It must prove that it can expand without paying for every acceleration through another increase in mortality, costs or sanitary instability.
This is the central message of From crisis to competitiveness: The re-rating of Chilean salmon, the report published by Rabobank on 15 July. The bank describes an industry that, after decades of expansion, disease outbreaks and abrupt corrections, now appears more disciplined biologically and potentially more attractive to investors.
Production and export growth have often concealed structural weaknesses. Official Chilean figures show that aquaculture exports reached USD 7.17 billion and 1.002 million tonnes in 2025, increasing by 3.7% in value and 10.9% in volume compared with 2024. Salmonids represented 74% of the total value of Chilean fisheries and aquaculture exports.
Those results confirm the industry’s commercial strength. They do not, however, resolve its fundamental challenge: converting productive capacity into orderly, repeatable and durable development.
Rabobank is not predicting that Chile will soon overtake Norway, which remains the world’s largest Atlantic salmon producer. It does, however, believe that the South American country could generate a substantial share of the additional salmon entering the market over the coming years.
The real competition is therefore not about absolute leadership. It is about the quality and reliability of growth.
Growth only matters if it can be repeated
Gorjan Nikolik, Rabobank’s senior seafood analyst, estimates that Chilean Atlantic salmon production could expand by between 4% and 6% a year, while growth elsewhere is likely to remain within a range of 1% to 3%.
According to Nikolik, these additional volumes should not create structural oversupply in the near term. Global supply growth would remain below historical levels, while demand could continue absorbing increased production without causing a permanent decline in salmon prices. It remains a scenario, however, rather than a result that can already be taken for granted.
The outlook is supported by several operational signals: lower Atlantic salmon mortality, rising harvest weights and investment in improved smolt, genetics, vaccines and farming technologies. Under favourable water conditions, average harvest weights in Chile have now exceeded five kilograms.
A larger fish can improve production efficiency by spreading part of the operating cost over a greater quantity of saleable product. But that advantage disappears when higher weights require excessively prolonged marine exposure, additional treatments or longer periods during which fish remain vulnerable to environmental events.
The true measure of competitiveness is therefore not the final weight of the salmon. It is the biological and economic cost required to bring that fish to harvest.
This distinction is particularly important as the global farmed salmon market enters a period of tighter supply growth. Greater Chilean output can help rebalance international availability, but only if it is supported by stable biological performance rather than another short-lived production surge.
Coho becomes an industrial lever
In this new phase, coho salmon is no longer a secondary species produced almost exclusively for Japan. It is becoming a tool through which Chilean companies can diversify farming sites, biological exposure and destination markets.
Rabobank identifies several advantages. Coho can reach harvest size in less than a year, has greater natural resistance to sea lice and generally records lower mortality than Atlantic salmon. Its estimated farming cost per kilogram is around 30% lower, while early 2026 data indicate that average harvest weights are moving close to those achieved by Chilean Atlantic salmon.
These characteristics allow producers to consider converting selected sites to coho where Atlantic salmon is more severely affected by parasite pressure. The objective is not necessarily to replace one species with another, but to create a production system that is less dependent on a single biological and commercial solution.
The critical issue then moves from the farm to the market.
Coho exports are expanding beyond Japan into North America, Europe and Latin America, but increased supply will need a clear and recognisable positioning. Presenting coho simply as a cheaper or second-choice salmon would erase part of its strategic advantage.
Rabobank’s analysis suggests that Chilean producers are seeking to preserve its premium credentials. Growth will therefore depend not only on production costs, but also on the prices that companies can achieve and on the speed at which new markets can be developed.
Politics and climate will determine the quality of the turnaround
Part of the reassessment of Chilean salmon is based on the country’s new political context.
José Antonio Kast, elected at the end of 2025, took office as President of Chile on 11 March 2026. Rabobank attaches importance to the administration’s support for faster permitting, the relocation of concessions and a reduction in regulatory bureaucracy.
The government has made shorter approval times for investment projects a stated priority. Chile’s Ministry of Economy has also highlighted the implementation of the country’s sectoral permitting legislation as an instrument for reducing administrative delays, including a backlog of thousands of maritime concession files. These measures are not specific guarantees for salmon farming, but they indicate the broader direction of government policy.
According to the estimates cited by Rabobank, effective reform could reduce Atlantic salmon production costs by between USD 0.30 and USD 0.50 per kilogram, while providing companies and investors with greater certainty.
The conditional tense is essential. These savings have not yet been achieved and will depend on the content, timing and practical implementation of the measures.
Simplification cannot mean weakening the environmental and sanitary controls required by an industry with such significant biological exposure. For producers, the most valuable benefit may not be fewer administrative requirements in themselves, but a clearer understanding of when and under what conditions decisions will be taken.
In a business already exposed to natural variables that cannot be fully controlled, regulatory uncertainty represents an additional and avoidable risk.
El Niño is the test the sector cannot postpone
The main factor capable of undermining the entire outlook remains biology.
On 9 July, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center confirmed that El Niño is continuing and is expected to strengthen through the end of 2026. NOAA indicated a 97% probability that the event will persist through early spring 2027 in the Northern Hemisphere. It also estimated an 81% chance of a very strong El Niño during the October–December 2026 period.
This does not mean that El Niño will automatically cause mortality at Chilean salmon farms. Its effects will depend on the areas involved and on the interaction between water temperature, oxygen levels, currents, stratification and harmful algal blooms.
The risk is nevertheless real. Chile’s salmon industry has previously experienced serious losses linked to algal blooms and deteriorating environmental conditions, demonstrating how quickly a favourable production cycle can be compromised. Rabobank therefore identifies biological performance as the main variable capable of overturning its constructive scenario.
The issue extends beyond salmon. As examined in Pesceinrete’s analysis of how climate change is becoming a production cost for fisheries and aquaculture, warmer waters can reduce available oxygen, increase physiological stress and make production cycles less predictable.
The second half of 2026 will consequently provide a more meaningful test than the growth percentages themselves.
Should improved biological performance withstand more difficult environmental conditions, the re-rating described by Rabobank will gain credibility. Should mortality, algal blooms or oxygen problems return on a significant scale, the industry will show that it has reduced its volatility without fully overcoming it.
Chile could become the principal driver of new global salmon supply. The real breakthrough, however, will not be reaching 6% growth. It will be achieving that growth while keeping mortality, production costs and environmental exposure under control. This is an inference based on Rabobank’s production outlook and NOAA’s current climate assessment.
