Seafood Innovation Day 2018

The North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) is a broad annual industry conference in Bergen, Norway covering all major facets of the seafood sector, and NASF focuses on the key network between cutting edge innovation, technology, research, policy, finance, trade and commercialization.

Innovation for sustainable growth in the seafood industry

The Norwegian Seafood Industry plays a leading role in global production of healthy and sustainable food, with a vision of threefold the seafood production by 2030. The Seafood Innovation Cluster is established by the industry to facilitate this growth. 

Because of the significance of innovation for future growth and the success, The Seafood Innovation Cluster and NASF have moved Seafood Innovation Day into the main programme March 8, 2018.

- To reach the ambitious vision of the seafood industry, we need to facilitate innovation and digital development, saysTanja Hoel, General Manager of The Seafood Innovation Cluster.

- At Seafood Innovation Day we will show exciting initiatives that can contribute to new solutions in the seafood industry.

Growth through innovative solutions is also crucial for the seafood industry for contributing to realize the UN´s sustainability goals by 2030.

- The seafood industry must take a leading role to seek solutions for sustainable food production for the growing global population, says Einar Wathne, Chairman of The Seafood Innovation Cluster and President of Cargill Aqua Nutrition. - When seafood executives from all over the world meet at NASF, we have a unique opportunity to put innovation for sustainable growth in the seafood industry on the global agenda.

New business opportunities through innovation and digitalization

The entrepreneurs represent much of the innovative force of the seafood industry and contribute to increased innovative opportunities in existing businesses as well as new seafood companies. The NCE Seafood Innovation Cluster programs provide opportunities for development, financing and commercialization of new business ideas. Digitalization and use of new technology provide new opportunities for business development in existing businesses. At Seafood Innovation Day we will look more closely into how machine learning, artificial intelligence and new blockchain technology can contribute to new solutions in the seafood industry.

Through an application process, 10 start-ups within the seafood sector have qualified to pitch their business ideas and participate in speed-dating with potential financial sources and partners at the Seafood Innovation Day. The purpose is to link good ideas with capital and partners, and thus facilitate the development of new seafood companies.

Through speed-dating we encourage new relations between potential business partners across industries, that provide new opportunities for innovation, digitalization and business development and new solutions for further development of the seafood industry.

Innovations often spin out from the R&D sector and represent a great potential both for the development of new businesses and for innovation in existing businesses.

Innovation Award

For the first time at NASF, we will award the best seafood innovation pitch. Through a “live” digital poll the participants, together with the award committee, will reward the winner of the Innovation Award with a value of NOK 250,000.

The Seafood Innovation Cluster

The Seafood Innovation Cluster represents one of the largest and most complete clusters in the world and supplies 37 billion meals worldwide. Here we find the world´s largest producer for Atlantic salmon offering sustainable seafood to customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. In total, the cluster represents 90 partners from the entire value chain, with a total annual turnover of 10 billion dollars.

Due to the unique global position and importance for Norwegian value creation, the seafood cluster obtained status as a Norwegian Center of Expertise in 2015, as one of 14 NCE clusters in Norway. NCE Seafood Innovation Cluster is a project that aims to promote sustainable growth of Norwegian seafood through a strategic collaboration between business, research and education.