A laser-based delousing solution for killing sea lice on fish doubled turnover in 2018 to USD 10 million (EUR 9 million).
Now Oslo, Norway-based Stingray Marine Solutions is receiving interest from Chile’s salmon industry and from Asia’s expanding offshore aquaculture sector, according to John Arne Breivik, general manager at Stingray, which commercialized the delousing apparatus in 2014.
Optical delousing is gentler on the fish, and there’s less handling and less stress, Breivik told SeafoodSource at the 2019 Seafood Expo Global in Brussels, Belgium.
“The lice is hit with high precision and coagulates within seconds. Sea lice fully absorb laser energy but salmon skin reflects light, so there’s no harm.”
At EUR 35,000 (USD 31,400) per year, the apparatus’ price tag apparatus might look steep, but the savings make it a cost-efficient investment, Breivik said. He pointed out that salmon farms in Norway spend vast sums – as much as EUR 1 billion (USD 1.2 billion), according to some estimates – on prevention and remediation of sea lice, which also reduce fish-growth performance.
Stingray has received interest from multiple salmon farming firms operating in Chile, according to Breivik, and the firm is considering opening an office to service Latin America.
“We are also starting to get queries from producers of other species as aquaculture expands,” he said.
Crucially, the big attraction for customers is the collection of big data, which informs the owner on the various performance metrics of the fish. Moving about the underwater cage, the Stingray machine also monitors lice levels and can carry a biomass measurement to help farmers manage feeding and fish-harvesting operations.
Photo courtesy of Stingray Marine Solutions
