Hybrid flow-through systems, a game changer for aquaculture and salmon farming

November 21, 2024 - Hybrid flow-through systems have the potential to transform the aquaculture industry and salmon farming in particular. According to a recent study by RaboResearch, the technology promises to enhance sustainability, boost salmon supply and improve biosecurity, addressing some of the industry's most pressing challenges.

Hybrid flow-through systems technology improves biosecurity in aquaculture

Hybrid-flow-through systems (HFS) technology is emerging as a viable solution to help salmon farmers meet fast rising demand. It significantly reduces exposure to pathogens and environmental impacts, offering notable improvements in biosecurity and sustainability.

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"The limitation of the current, marine cage-based industry is the inability to sufficiently grow supply. Despite being highly technically advances, Norwegian salmon farming experienced increasing levels of mortality in both 2023 and 2024,"notes Gorjan Nikolik, Senior Analyst - Seafood for RaboResearch. The cause was a combination of lice treatments, which have the side effect of reducing the protective layer on a salmon's scales, and exposure to bacterial infections and jellyfish stings resulting from that eroded protective layer. HFS aquaculture is one of the alternatives that can change this situation materially. By moving farming into contained basins on the shore, it is possible to exclude most pathogens, such as lice, bacteria, algae and jellyfish. This minimises the need for medication, resulting in faster growth rates and better feed-conversion ratios. "Early data shows feed-conversion ratios of 1.1 on HFS farms compared to an industry average of 1.3. These results, combined with a survival rate of 97% compared to 83% for the net pen industry, suggesting that biological performance on HFS farms is superior," explains Nikolik.

The economic benefits of hybrid flow-through systems are significant

The higher biosecurity of HFS leads to a higher percentage of superior-grade fish compared to traditional farming methods, resulting in higher prices. Additionally, HFS farms have a lower environmental footprint, as they do not release pathogens into the surrounding waters and have minimal risk of fish escapes. "Nitrogen levels will be greatly reduced with HFS technology, as the key sources of nitrogen from traditional farms are collected at the bottom of the tank and not released with the water exiting the farm," notes Nikolik.

While HFS represent an improvement in biosecurity and sustainability due to their limited impact on the aquatic environment, they do come with an increase in energy consumption. Between one and eight kWh of energy is needed to produce one kilogram of HFS salmon, depending on the systems used. In contrast, the marine stage of traditional salmon farming has negligible energy use. "The bottom line is that the good price and the lower biological cost of production outweigh the higher energy cost and should lead to improved profitability," states Nikolik. However, to make a real improvement in sustainability performance, HFS farms will need to be powered by sustainable sources of energy. "Fortunately, all the current projects we are aware of (if construction or planned) have renewable energy as a source."

Capital and legislation are essential ingredients for success

Nevertheless, substantial capital investment and supportive legislation are crucial for the widespread adoption of HFS technology. Current projects in Norway and Iceland are leading the way, but expansion into other regions like Chile, the US and Canada will require significant financial backing and regulatory support.

"Our estimates are that the projects currently operating and under construction will need between €2 billion and €3 billion of capital between 2024 and 2030 for their existing plans," notes Nikolik. A much higher amount will be needed if the large number of conceptual and permitted projects are to become reality. HFS technology has the potential to transform the salmon farming industry, provided that the necessary capital and legislative frameworks are in place.

High prices emerge as global salmon supply growth turns negative

For more information, contact Gorjan Nikolik, Senior Analyst – Seafood, RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness, Email gorjan.nikolik@rabobank.com

The Aquaculturists

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Forsea achieves record-breaking cell density for cultivated seafood

November 13, 2024 - Cell-cultivated seafood innovator Forsea struck a major breakthrough in making freshwater eel farming a viable commercial reality. The start-up announced its organoid technology reached a record-breaking cell density of more than 300 million cells/ml, and with a minimal and precise use of cultured media ingredients.

Forsea Cell-Cultivated Eel by Liran Maimon

This is the highest cell density recorded in the field, moving Forsea to the forefront of cultured seafood production efficiency. The landmark technology allows for a scalable and highly cost-effective supply for the hugely popular traditional Japanese delicacy, eel (unagi)whose availability has been significantly hampered by overfishing and the destruction of aquatic ecosystems.

Eel is big in Japan

Forsea is currently focusing on manufacturing cultured freshwater eel due to the immense market potential, particularly in Japan. As the world's largest consumer of eel, Japan recorded sales of 140,000 tonnes in 2023 - 50% of total global sales. The traditional Japanese dish unagi is considered a premium delicacy, prized not only for its rich flavour and tender texture but also because of its rarity. Freshwater eel is endangered and cannot be commercially bred in captivity. Demand for eel far surpasses the industry's current supply capabilities, translating to skyrocketing prices.

Better, faster and economical

Setting a new standard for 'blue ocean' initiatives, the company created a new approach to cell cultivating fish tissues outside of their native water habitats via organoid technology. The patent-protected platform involves creating the ideal environment for animal cells to spontaneously assemble into three-dimensional tissue structures with their natural composition of fat, muscle and connective tissue. 

This method both echoes the natural growth process of the tissues in a living animal, giving it a closer-to-nature edge, and bypasses the scaffolding stage as well as being dramatically less dependent on expensive growth factors. This makes the process highly affordable and positions its cell-grown version to price parity (or potentially lower) with traditional aquafarmed eel, a key challenge the cell-based industry was desperate to overcome.

Ample affordable cultivated eel not oceans away

"The breakthrough to this level of cell density highlights the strength of our organoid technology," exclaims Moria Shimoni, CTO of Forsea. "It's a validation of our approach to high-efficiency cultivation of seafood to meet both economic and sustainability goals at scale".

After completing its proof-of-concept continuous harvesting process, Forsea reports it is ready to take production of its cultured fish products to the next phase of commercial scale-up.

"Forsea's organoid technology requires less capital expenditure than other technologies," explains Roee Nir, Founder and CEO of Forsea. "Achieving this level of cell density with minimal resources will translate to substantial reductions in the unit of economics and will bring cultured seafood production to a cost that is actually below the traditional market price. This is major milestone for Forsea and validates our vision of making sustainable, high-quality seafood affordable and widely accessible. It also sets a powerful precedent for scaling other cultured seafood products and establishing sustainable alternative supply chains for economically sensitive species."

The cell-cultured eel is expected to ease the strain on the world's eel populations and reduce environmental impact of traditional eel farming. This encompasses reducing global warming potential, water consumption and land use and alleviated pressure on marine ecosystems by focusing on endangered species.

"Our recent industry survey shows that cultivated meat production is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach," says Elliot Swartz, Principal Scientist Cultivated Meat, GFI. "It's encouraging to see positive data from companies showing how different methods can address challenges in cost and scale. I'm especially pleased to see a GFI research grantee, Dr Iftach Nachman, help a startup pioneer new ways of cultivating meat. This is a great example of how foundational open-access science enables and makes possible follow-on work by the private sector."

The company is preparing for commercial launch of its unagi product in 2026. Earlier this year, Forsea held a successful tasting event at the reputable 'a' restaurant in Tel Aviv, where it served the world's first cultivated unagi kabayaki - a grilled fresh eel on a bed or aromatic rice - receiving rave reviews. Among the tasters where representatives from the Japanese embassy and various Japanese food companies based in Israel.

For more information, visit HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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Nofima research shows how to identify fish stress using light

November 12, 2024 - There is an increasing need for methods that can accurately measure stress in aquaculture species, without harming the organism. Hyperspectral imaging of biofluorescence is such a method, as it can potentially measure early signs of stress in both fish and invertebrates.

Samuel Ortega researches spectroscopy

The fish and invertebrates that exhibit biofluorescence emit lower energy coloured light when they are exposed to higher-energy blue light. This strong fluorescence is not visible to the naked eye, but it can be measured with hyperspectral imaging.

"Fish may exhibit welfare traits in ways that are invisible to the human eye, and of our objectives is to explore new technologies that can reveal this to us in real-time," says Evan Durland, Scientist in aquaculture genetics and project leader.

Welfare indicators are important because animals that experience chronic stress are vulnerable to disease, experience less growth and ultimately have a higher mortality rate. The current methods used to identify early signs of stress in marine species have certain limitations.

Glowing when stressed

Technology scientists Samuel Ortega and visiting PhD student Thomas Juhasz investigated the applications of using hyperspectral imaging of biofluorescence as a welfare indicator for marine species, particularly lumpfish, red king crab and green sea urchins.

The scientists found that lumpfish and red king crabs produced stronger fluorescent emissions after exposure to stressors. Put in simple words, the animals glowed more brightly when they experienced acute stress. They also found that sea urchins with broken spines or lesions glow brighter in the areas where they are affected.

The scientist has ideas for how to improve the technology:

"We want to see if we can integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into this method. The AI can analyse the biofluorescence data acquired through hyperspectral imaging, and alert us if it detects any fluorescence changes that may indicate stress in the animals. We believe that this could contribute significantly to the future of welfare measurement during aquaculture operations", said Samuel Ortega.

The research was funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program through the AquaVitae project, and by Nofima through the Deep Vision project. The research was done by Nofima in collaboration with Marie Curie PhD student Thomas Juhasz in 2022.

For more information, visit HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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