(Oslo, August 13, 2026) The Antarctic krill fishery, where Aker BioMarine sources its krill ingredients, concluded its 2026 season this week. Vessels operated by Aker BioMarine’s harvesting partner, Aker QRILL Company, have ceased fishing and are preparing to leave the fishing grounds. The fisheries close when the precautionary harvest limit set by CCAMLR is reached, demonstrating that the management system is working as intended.
The season continued later than in 2025, when the Area 48 krill fishery closed on 1 August after reaching the 620,000-tonne harvest limit. In 2026, fishing activity was spread across CCAMLR Subareas 48.1 and 48.2, with vessels operating on multiple fishing grounds. Vessels operated across a geographic range of about 1,000 kilometers, roughly the distance from Oslo to Paris, spanning CCAMLR's Subareas 48.1 and 48.2.
Nearly 90 percent of catches in the Antarctic Peninsula were taken after 1 April, outside the penguin breeding season. Since 2019, the krill industry has voluntarily closed around 74,000 square kilometers of buffer zones around penguin colonies for fishing between 1 October and 15 March.
For Aker BioMarine, the closure is a marker of the responsibly managed resource behind our krill products. A fishery that operates within strict, science-based limits is the foundation for responsibly sourced ingredients and for stable, resilient supply chains for our customers, at a time when global supplies of traditional marine ingredients are increasingly constrained.
"A well-managed fishery is the starting point for everything we do. When the fishery closes on reaching its precautionary limit, it shows that the management behind the ingredients we deliver is working exactly as it should. This is a concrete example of the responsible management our operations are built on," said Matts Johansen, CEO of Aker BioMarine
A small and well-managed fishery in a large ecosystem
The closure comes weeks after the FAO, the UN's food and agriculture body, named the Antarctic fishing areas a “global benchmark for precautionary, ecosystem-based fisheries management” in its 2026 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report. All 15 stocks assessed in the region, including krill, were rated 100 percent biologically sustainable, the highest share of any fishing area covered by the report.
The Antarctic krill fishery remains one of the most tightly regulated fisheries in the world. Around 11 krill vessels operated during the 2026 season across CCAMLR's Area 48, a management area covering approximately 3.5 million square kilometers. The current 620,000-tonne trigger level represents around 11 % of CCAMLR's precautionary catch limit of 5.61 million tonnes for Area 48 and less than one percent of the approximately 63 million tonnes of krill biomass estimated by the 2019 CCAMLR synoptic survey.
Building better management
Two proposals are currently on the table at CCAMLR and will be considered at the Commission's annual meeting this October: the establishment of a Marine Protected Area around the Antarctic Peninsula, and a modernized approach to krill fishery management.
Aker BioMarine and Aker QRILL Company jointly support the establishment of the proposed Domain 1 Marine Protected Area of approximately 455,000 km² around the Antarctic Peninsula. The companies also support the adoption of a modernized Krill Fishery Management Approach that distributes catches across smaller management units and adapts fishing activity over space and time.
Experience from the last two seasons shows why both elements matter and that the fisheries do not always return to the same places. In 2025, fishing activity increased in Subarea 48.1. In 2026, the fishery expanded its use of areas north, central, and south of Bransfield Strait, as well as north and central Gerlache Strait.
"The responsible solution moving forward should now be to build that distribution into the management system rather than relying on annual variations in krill abundance and fleet behavior", Said Webjørn Barstad, CEO of Aker QRILL Company. "That means protecting large and important areas while establishing a science-based management system for the areas where fishing can be further developed. These elements need to be considered together if the 27 members of CCAMLR are going to reach consensus."