Seafood and Aquaculture

This ecosystem includes leading seafood companies, international firms and pioneering start-ups. Leading the field in research and competence building, the region is also home to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, the Institute of Marine Research, the NCE Seafood Innovation Cluster and the University of Bergen – Norway’s largest marine university. 

Manolin co-founder John Constantino, in an article with Invest in Bergen, said, “there is no other place in the world like Bergen”. 
(Read the full article here)

The place to be

Greater Bergen is the ideal place for taking part in developing the Norwegian seafood industry and making an impact on the global development of fish farming.

The ocean can contribute to solving many of the sustainability challenges that the world is facing today, and Norway will play an important role in finding these solutions. The aquaculture industry sees core prerequisites as a base for successfully developing a healthy, safe and even more sustainable seafood industry for the future.

Key areas where firms can contribute to are:

• Climate, environment, and the circular economy
• Digital transformation and digitalisation
• Fish health and welfare
• Future feed ingredients

There are many opportunities for companies that want to take part in developing the industry and solving its key challenges. Doing so will ensure future seafood production and global food security.

Data sharing

AquaCloud is a big data project involving fish farmers and seafood firms. Serving as an innovation platform, it works to collect, store, share and standardise fish health data from participating fish farms. The goal of this platform is to allow innovators and service providers to create new services for these fish farmers that solve key challenges. These include reducing fish mortality rates, improving fish health, dealing with sea lice, improving sustainability, and ensuring overall fish production. Norwegian companies, start-ups, tech firms and researchers can use the aggregated industry data to develop new services to contribute to sustainable growth.

To provide additional value and a holistic overview, supplemental data is added from BarentsWatch, the Institute of Marine Research and weather services.

Several international firms have seen AquaCloud’s potential, and the platform is constantly looking for new collaborators. Companies registered in Norway can access this data, and thereby discover opportunities to contribute their own data or create innovative solutions for solving industry challenges.

Advanced testing facilities

The Ocean Innovation Norwegian Catapult Centre offers a network of facilities for product design, prototyping, testing and verification for the ocean industries.

Headquartered in Bergen, this network provides access to training and facilities, like Marineholmen RASLab, driving research and innovation in aquaculture through “Recirculating Aquaculture Systems”. It works to offer small- and medium-sized companies the tools needed to rapidly scale and develop ideas into marketable solutions and products.