170 Years in the Marine Oil Industry. The history of EPAX dates back to 1838, when the company JC Martens was founded in Bergen in Norway. The company traded
in dried fish, herring, salt and cod liver oil. However, over the years it gradually came to specialise in the refinement
of cod liver oil and other marine oil products. In the mid-1980s, the first delivery of concentrated Omega-3 was made to the
USA. Norsk Hydro bought JC Martens in 1987 and it changed the company’s name to Pronova Biocare in 1992.
In Ålesund in Norway, the two companies Peder Devold (1872) and Oluf Holm (1887), which were both engaged in the cod liver
oil and marine oil industry, were bought and merged with Brødrene Aarsæther in 1971. This company was in turn acquired by
Lipro in the late 1980s. The company’s product portfolio turned from cod liver oil to Omega-3 oils and Omega-3 concentrates.
Lipro was bought by Pronova Biocare in 1998.
Through these mergers, Pronova Biocare, the former parent company of EPAX, acquired the technology necessary for the molecular
distillation of fatty acid separation of marine oils, thus strengthening its position and helping it to become the leading
company in the marine Omega-3 fatty acids industry. In 2004, Norsk Hydro sold Pronova Biocare to Ferd Private Equity Fund.
Pronova Biocare and EPAX demerged in December 2005.
In early 2007,
Austevoll Seafood ASA acquired EPAX. Austevoll is a leading company in the pelagic fish, fish meal and fish oil industry, with processing facilities
in Norway, Chile and Peru.
Being the only significant vertically-integrated Omega-3 supplier, EPAX today continues the marine oil tradition as the leading
supplier of marine-based Omega-3 concentrates.
