Seafood Processing

At night a seafood plant is washed down with large volumes of water and chemicals. By day much of the floor area is held at chilled temperature, and the raw material that arrives cannot wait. Few other building types face that combination. Each facility therefore begins with the line. Equipment positions, the product’s path and the hygienic barriers are settled before the building takes shape. There is a single direction from reception to dispatch, and a staff flow that keeps the zones clean. Commissions run from fish-reception buildings of a few hundred square metres to plants of tens of thousands of square metres for the export markets. The work covers new builds, conversions and hygienic upgrades carried out in operation.

After opening, the facilities keep changing, with growing capacity, new lines and tighter requirements. The building has to hold those changes from day one. That means the structure, the service routes, and floors that withstand the wash-down year after year. More and more clients are also planning viewing corridors, so customers and visitors can follow production without crossing a hygiene zone.

What we deliver

Full architectural services from feasibility study through construction documentation. Process hall layouts, cold chain design, hygienic zoning, staff and logistics separation, technical infrastructure, quay access and site planning. We work directly with process equipment suppliers to ensure the building serves the line.

Why it matters

A seafood processing facility is a long-term capital investment where operational efficiency is determined at the drawing stage. Incorrect flow, undersized corridors or inflexible structural grids become permanent constraints. Our facilities are designed with oversized utility corridors, expansion-ready structural grids and pre-planned future zones, so capacity growth does not require demolition.

Documented experience

Over six decades of industrial facility design, including multiple large-scale salmon and whitefish processing plants across Norway and internationally. Recent projects include greenfield facilities of 18,000 square metres producing over 100,000 tonnes a year. Others are targeted expansions of existing plants that kept full production throughout construction.

Standards & compliance

Seafood facilities are planned around food-safety authority requirements and EU hygiene regulation, with clean and unclean zones, wash-down-durable materials and traceability through the line. We lay the zones in from the start, so a plant can certify to BRC or IFS without rebuilding.