Research & Development

As we are currently at the early stage of establishing our organisation, defining our business scope, and drafting and designing our Skipavika facility, we are also shaping the priorities of our R&Ds.

Bratislav-Milenkovic_Viking-Aqua
Bratislav-Milenkovic_Viking-Aqua

As we progress in developing our project, we detect knowledge gaps and see development needs within the industry that need to be closed and sorted out to build the Next Generation RAS facility. Our R&D goes hand in hand with our other four pillars: fish welfare, sustainability, technology and partnership and we will focus on these topics as we commit to our future R&D projects. Through are R&D, we work to:

Improve our sustainability

To succeed in reducing our footprint by 50% every decade, an ongoing process will be to seek new ways to increase our sustainability. To accomplish such a bold and ambiguous goal, we need to search for ways to reduce our usage of energy, CO2e and disposables, and we need to seek ways to recycle all our waste products. Fish feed will be the largest footprint element, so we will strive to reduce the Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) without lowering the fish welfare. FCR is a ratio of how much feed is required to produce 1 kg of fish. As a large amount of the feed doesn't end up as feed for the fish but instead as waste and, as a result, degrades the tank's water quality, one focus area will be to remove this element. 

We want to ensure high fish welfare in our facility and production. Improved fish welfare results in increased growth, reduced processing time, increased feed efficiency, reduced CO2e and increased profit. With extremely bold goals, like minimising FCR and mortality, utilising technology to record and act on more welfare indicators and reducing the handling that causes stress to the fish, we need to be disruptive and think differently and outside the box. We will turn every stone through analytical and innovative approaches to find those adjustments that improve animal welfare; either there are many minor improvements or a few significant changes or inventions that are needed. 

Increase our fish welfare

Explore, develop and utilise technology

Viking Aqua's R&D will be data-driven. We are confident that technology is one of the leading drivers disrupting the aquaculture industry. By being disruptive, it enables us to explore new fields and technologies that can change the game in the sector and help us reach the next level. By exploring, developing and utilising new and existing technology, we aim to understand, extract more and use the data we accumulate. We believe that camera and sensor technologies inside the tank can give us a deeper insight, read animal welfare more thoroughly, and detect risks earlier. We have, for instance, already seen several new technologies with the potential to enrich the understanding of fish welfare. With targeted R&D and joint forces, these technologies have tremendous potential to bloom. We also believe that integrating different technologies can reduce the fish handling requirements, increase traceability and reduce the labour in our plant. By utilising technology and actively getting involved to take the technology to the next level, we can build and operate a profitable fish farm with higher fish welfare and a lower footprint. 

Our partners are vital to us, as all parties will come an even longer way together than alone. Through teamwork, we can get closer and reach our goals, developing our operations to the next level. We trust, cheer and are transparent to benefit all parties. Gaining new knowledge or developing new or existing technologies and methods in collaboration creates synergies that strengthen our partnerships.

Include our partners