Byrne, Norway-based Hima Seafood is months away from the first harvest of trout from its recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), which it said is the largest land-based trout farm in the world.
Hima Seafood CEO Sten Falkum told SeafoodSource during Seafood Expo Global – which ran from 6 to 8 May in Barcelona, Spain – that the fish are approaching 4 kilograms, and a harvest will come in the next few months.
“We have tested all parts of the equipment and all parts of the facility are now in use,” Falkum said. “All the main technology components are working and adjusted, so we believe we have a fully operational and perfectly performing RAS facility at the moment.”
To get to that point, the company had to find solutions for several problems that hadn’t been solved before – including how to transfer large fish in a closed RAS system with zero damage.
“We have had a lot of learning, and much of the facility you see here, we’ve had to kind of develop it ourselves,” Falkum said. “There’s no map to learn from, more or less, but now we have been farming for four batches of trout.”
He also said the company has chosen to be a freshwater facility, rather than a saltwater one, because it reduces the chance of any mortality incidents...
