Carsoe in Aalborg
Interview with Hugo Dissing, CEO - Carsoe
From land to sea
At the East Harbour in Aalborg, you’ll find Carsoe - a company that develops, manufactures, and installs steel processing equipment for the fishing industry, designed for use onboard ships for tasks such as catching and sorting seafood. Despite having offices in Norway, USA, Canada, and East Asia, Carsoe maintains its headquarters and primary production in Aalborg. Here, all the specialized equipment is developed, manufactured, and tested before it’s put to work at sea.
The company was founded in 1976 as Aaby Stål, but has been based in Aalborg under the name Carsoe since 1990.
Today, it employs around 300 people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Building such specialized processing equipment requires blacksmiths, electricians, engineers and everything in between.
Hugo Dissing has been Carsoe’s CEO for almost four years and brings solid experience with processing equipment for the food industry.
Dedicated employees is the key
- “As a company, we want to do our part to ensure more young people choose a vocational education. We’re going to need that kind of workforce - blacksmiths, electricians, and so on. We need to show young people that this is an exciting foundational education you can build a lot on,” explains Hugo Dissing.
Hugo Dissing, CEO - Carsoe
At a time when trades like blacksmithing and electrical work are in short supply, Carsoe is working to make vocational education attractive to more young people.
- "We have a partnership with Aalborg Municipality called Din Fremtid (‘Your Future’). We invite entire school classes here for a full day, giving them a chance to get a taste of our work. They might get to assemble components, do some welding, read electrical diagrams - and they even get to take home a small mini-conveyor they’ve built.”
For Carsoe, this is a concrete and visual way to show young people what’s possible with a vocational education.
- “Our employees are the key to our success. We have to invest in training them so they gain the necessary experience. Otherwise, we can’t succeed as a business - our employees are our most important resource.”
Taking responsibility and standing together
Carsoe employs around 200 people in Aalborg, but not all are fully qualified yet.
- “About 20 of our employees are apprentices, trainees, or student workers. For us, it’s an investment in the workforce of the future - showing what’s possible with a vocational qualification and giving them hands-on experience. That’s why we also work closely with Tech College, UCN, MARTEC, and Aalborg University.”
For Carsoe, the many educational institutions are one of the major advantages of being based in Aalborg and North Denmark.
- “We’re constantly strengthening and developing our collaboration with these institutions, so young people also get real value from coming here. It’s our way of taking responsibility for educating the next generation. And many of them are keen to come back and work with us once they’re fully qualified.”
“I think we often underestimate how skilled and recognized we are in Aalborg and North Denmark, globally, for the work we do - particularly in the food industry. It’s not something people here shout about.”
North Danish modesty
Although Carsoe operates on a global stage, the company keeps its headquarters in Aalborg—for several reasons.
- “There’s undeniably good infrastructure in North Jutland, with Aalborg Airport playing a key role. The strong transport network also means we can recruit from across North and Central Denmark. We’re also close to other ports and shipyards in the region.”
- “We have a strong tradition in North Denmark and Aalborg for producing equipment for the food industry. That’s why we have many partner companies we collaborate with here, even though we specialize in processing equipment for food production. Over time, Aalborg has developed into something like a ‘food industry Silicon Valley.’ That’s a huge advantage to build on.”
According to Hugo Dissing, this strong North Danish foundation is noticed worldwide. Decades of experience in producing food industry processing equipment, combined with a robust education environment- including Europe’s best engineering program at Aalborg University - give the region a distinct edge.
- “I think we often underestimate how skilled and recognized we are in Aalborg and North Jutland, globally, for the work we do - particularly in the food industry. It’s not something people here shout about. We do as a company, but the municipality and region could certainly talk more about how good we are up here. That could help us attract more companies and talent.”
A big city – not a metropolis
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With around 220,000 residents, Aalborg Municipality is Denmark’s third-largest by population, but Hugo Dissing doesn’t see it as a big city - and he means that in the best way.
“Carsoe is in the perfect location for what we do. Aalborg is a relatively large city by Danish standards, but we don’t try to make it more than it is. That means there’s a sense of closeness here, strong cross-industry collaboration, and close ties between people. There’s a familiarity that makes it easy to share ideas across companies. Many businesses here are deeply rooted in the local community.”
“Our employees take ownership. You have to be engaged in your work to carry out the specialized tasks we handle. Our values are that we stand together, take responsibility, and finish what we start - and we always do it as a team. We couldn’t do what we do without employees who live up to those values.”
At Carsoe, those values are created by the employees themselves, working every day to bring them to life.
“In Aalborg, we as companies need to stand together to focus on vocational education. We should talk about it when we meet. How we can best support it, so everyone takes responsibility for the future workforce? We are nothing without skilled employees.”
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