Mowi rolls out new tech to track fishy behaviour

Mowi collaborates with innovation engine to make salmon farming more sustainable

By SeaWestNews

After extensive research and development, Mowi, the largest producer of farm-raised salmon in the world, is rolling out a new sensing system that will gather real-time intelligence on the fish in its ocean pens.

The advanced underwater sensing and software analysis platform will gather intelligence on real-time growth, weight distribution, feeding control, and automatic lice counting for salmon.

It was developed by Tidal at X, the R&D innovation engine of Alphabet which was created by the founders of Google.

“Tidal’s mission is to protect the ocean and preserve its ability to support life and help feed humanity, sustainably,” said Tidal’s General Manager, Neil Davé

“Our initial area of focus is on developing technologies that bring greater visibility and understanding of what’s happening under the water. We are delighted to be working with Mowi to provide tools that we hope can help Mowi make their operations more sustainable,” he said.

Over the last three years, Mowi has been researching and testing the new sensing system developed by Tidal at Alphabet’s X, Mowi said in a statement.

“After an extensive research and development period involving field testing and data collection, the project is now ready for commercial validation and Mowi will roll out the technology to multiple sites across Norway,” the company said.

 “Mowi’s vision is to be leading the Blue Revolution. As the biggest salmon farmer in the world we have a special responsibility to engage in the development of technology to improve our competitive advantage and to optimise our farming of healthy and sustainable food from the ocean. Thus, it is very encouraging to work with Tidal to further develop ocean farming technology,” said Mowi CEO, Ivan Vindheim.

Tidal’s technology brings multiple capabilities into a single hardware and software platform and provides farmers with real-time information, so that they can confidently manage their daily operations. By employing artificial intelligence to analyse big data, Mowi hopes to understand and respond to long-term trends in fish behaviour and thereby further optimise ocean farming.

“With a combined vision to fully realise the potential of our seas for sustainable food production, our Research and Development department collaborated with the Tidal team as they developed their underwater sensing and analysis platform. This is the start of a journey towards finding new and innovative uses of technology throughout our value chain in the years to come,” said Mowi CTO, Øyvind Oaland.

Mowi is the world’s leading seafood company and the largest producer of farm-raised salmon in the world. It produces one-fifth of the world’s farm-raised salmon at facilities in Norway, Scotland, Canada, Chile, Ireland and the Faroe Islands.