Tiny Fish is big winner at Innovation awards

A company set up to create economic value from hatchery fish that do not make the grade was one of the winners in the Responsible Seafood Innovation Awards yesterday.

Tiny Fish, which finds unique markets for small salmon from Scottish hatcheries that are removed during the freshwater phase of production to allow the best salmon to be raised at sea, was named as Aquaculture Innovation of the Year at the awards, announced at the Responsible Seafood Summit in St Andrews, Scotland.

The winner in the Fisheries category was predator deterrent company Genuswave.

The awards were organised by the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) as part of the Responsible Seafood Summit and sponsored by the US Soybean Export Council (USSEC).

Pictured, above, are Tiny Fish co-founder Teresa Garzon (centre) with Thomas Götz of Genuswave (centre-right), with GSA’s Lukas Manomaitas (left), and Brad Doyle and Susan Watkins of USSEC.

Tiny Fish was co-founded by experienced aquaculture professionals Teresa Garzon and Jarl van den Berg, who is also General Manager at hatchery Landcatch.

Juvenile salmon are routinely graded to minimise variability within the growing tanks, and thus, improve animal welfare. Sometimes, the smallest salmon are euthanised with anaesthetics and removed from the population, as they will be too small to be successfully transferred to sea. These small fish are typically repurposed into biogas or compost as the use of anaesthetics prevents them from being consumed for nutritional, value-added purposes.

Tiny Fish is addressing this issue by euthanising the fish with an instant electrical shock, using Ace Aquatec’s humane stunning system. The solution offers high efficacy regarding fish welfare and slaughter, and works to ensure that every fish can be harvested and sold for nutritional value-added purposes.

As a result, fish that had been used as compost or incinerated are now being used for high-value pet food, or even for human consumption.

Teresa Garzon, Co-founder, Tiny Fish

Deterring predators safely

Genuswave has developed targeted acoustic startle technology (TAST) to safely deter marine mammals from getting too close to fishing vessels. TAST is also used to protect fish in marine pens and to keep marine mammals safely away from underwater operations such as piledriving for wind farms.

The technology was developed by researchers at the University of St Andrews in conjunction with Genuswave. Unlike traditional acoustic deterrent devices (ADDs), which typically use a constant, loud sound over a wide sound spectrum, TAST does not create problems for non-target species and predators like seals do not become habituated to the sound. The emissions are not audible to fish.

In fisheries, TAST has been shown to lead to a significant reduction in seal and other predator incidents, and increased catches for the fishing vessels.

Genuswave TAST

Also shortlisted as finalists for the Aquaculture category were Ace Aquatec, for its A-BIOMASS system, which uses sophisticated camera technology and artificial intelligence to estimate biomass of fish in pens; and Seaqure Labs, a Swedish company that has developed alternative proteins for aquafeed using fungus grown on agriculture sidestreams.

The other finalists in the Fisheries category were Green Iceberg, which uses tiny particles of ice to create a super-cooling system to keep fish fresher for longer; and Global Fishing Watch for its “Vessel Viewer” system, which makes it possible to track fishing vessels internationally and highlights potential unlawful and unmonitored fishing activity.