Swiss salmon farmer signs up Billund for RAS farm
Billund Aquaculture of Denmark has entered into a strategic partnership with Swiss Blue Salmon, a company that plans to build a land-based fish farm in the Alps.
Both companies say it will be an innovative project using state-of-the-art recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and other cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud solutions, digitalisation and full automation.
The planned location is the beautiful Alpine canton of Glarus in the east of Switzerland. When in operation the farm should be able to provide 8% of the salmon that is imported into the country.
Swiss Blue Salmon CEO Rudolf Ryf said: ”We have good quality water sources in the country and I see an opportunity to build up a Swiss aquaculture industry and reduce the current high import levels.”
He said one of his original motivations for creating this company was to address the seafood trade deficit in Switzerland, where almost all fish is imported.
“We have good quality water sources in the country and I see an opportunity to build up a Swiss aquaculture industry and reduce the import levels from 98%,” he added.
He hoped that the new facility will also host visitors and assist local universities with their aquaculture research efforts
Sune Moeller, chief technical officer at Swiss Blue Salmon, said: “From the fish farmer’s point of view, we create a lot of data that gets uploaded to a cloud-based platform and, from there, we can share all raw data with strategic partners like Billund.
“In turn, Billund will be able to analyse that data and come up with new ideas and solutions, to make sure that both stay on the forefront of their industries.”
Bjarne Hald Olsen, business and development manager at Billund Aquaculture, said: “We are very pleased to enter this strategic partnership with Swiss Blue Salmon. It represents a significant step forward towards the creation of a sustainable Swiss aquaculture industry.”
Obersee Lake, Glarus Canton, Switzerland
