Nekton Settefisk's RAS facility in Aunvågen, where the company wants to expand. Here you can see the development of the industrial area. Picture taken September 2024

Hatchery producer: - It's so close

Nekton Hatchery has applied to increase production to 1200 tons at the hatchery facility in Aunvågen, Norway. The sector authorities have said yes, and the response from the county municipality is expected at any moment.

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Nekton Settefisk has two facilities for the production of smolt. The facilities Aunvågen and Sagosen are located in Smøla and Aure Municipality in Norway. The annual production is 3.5-4 million smolt, of which 75 % of the volume is sold externally on contracts. The remainder is sold on the spot market. The smolt produced has a size of 100-300 grams before being released into the sea.

The company has focused on producing larger smolt and thus a smaller number of fish.

To LandbasedAQ, general manager Christian Wikan says that Nekton Settefisk delivered approximately 3.6 million smolt with an average weight of 209 grams last year.

"Our main focus is, as always, on good biology, fish welfare, and water quality. Something we feel we have succeeded with, and this is reflected in the results. Smolt suppliers are usually measured based on performance after 30 days in the sea on mortality and appetite. But we do not rest on that, there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to biological production," he informs.

Waiting eagerly

Christian Wikan is the general manager of Nekton Settefisk and says they are eagerly awaiting the final permit approval.

Wikan states that they have used the year 2024 to prepare for the expansion of the hatchery facility at Aunvågen in Smøla Municipality.

Nekton Settefisk has applied to increase production to 1200 tons at the hatchery facility in Aunvågen. The facility in Aunvågen was one of the first commercial hatchery facilities in Norway with RAS and was built in 1999. This application is still under review, but Wikan states that they have received approval from all sector authorities and are now waiting for the final permit document from Møre og Romsdal County Municipality, which is likely to come these days, he says eagerly.

Wikan describes that there has been a good process and dialogue in connection with the processing of the application for increased production capacity at the hatchery facility.

"We greatly appreciate when the administration provides timelines for expected processing time, and we understand that unforeseen changes may occur, but that we are then informed about this," he says.

Operating both RAS and flow-through

In Aunvågen, where they have RAS facilities, they have 21 tanks of 7 cubic meters in the hatchery/start feeding department, in growth 1 there are 10 tanks of 100 cubic meters, and in growth 2, they have 11 tanks of 100 cubic meters.

Operations technician Ingrid Strand at Nekton Settefisk checks that the initial feeding of the fry is going as it should.

At the facility in Sagosen, the company has a combination of both RAS and flow-through. In the hatchery and start feeding, they use flow-through. In grow-out they use RAS where they have four tanks of 250 cubic meters and five tanks of 100 cubic meters. In the grow-out2 department, they use flow-through where they have six tanks of 450 cubic meters.

At Nekton Settefisk, there are now 19 employees, and Wikan says they have a relatively large technical department that also assists in sister companies within the Nekton group.

"We are working on organizational development and reorganization related to the expansion of the company. New hires are planned in this regard. We see an increasing need for personnel in connection with new requirements from the authorities, including treatment plants, reporting requirements, and new technical standards, quality work, and fish health, and not least close monitoring of the fish and customer requirements for regular reporting," he says.

Educational and rewarding

Experiences that Wikan considers particularly educational or successful have been the close collaboration with customers on the sea side.

"Therefore, we conduct release evaluations six months after launching. Getting feedback on what we succeed with and what can be improved is incredibly useful for our development as a smolt supplier. Gaining insight into the sea phase and discussing how we can strategically use the smolt as a tool to improve production throughout the value chain is interesting, educational, and rewarding," he says.

Desires clear regulations for land-based

Hand feeding of smolt.

Wikan believes it is important that clear regulations for land-based aquaculture are established and that the temporary halt in processing applications ceases.

"We chose to submit input for consultation as we are particularly opposed to; Disinfection of freshwater. Several of the freshwater sources in smolt production have properties that make filtration and/or disinfection difficult."

He points, for example, to when the freshwater source is rich in humus, which is "typical Mid-Norway."

"Disinfection of freshwater has a high investment cost and operating cost, including energy consumption, which we believe makes it irresponsible to purify water in flow-through systems with water consumption of several thousand cubic meters per hour, and to what benefit?" he asks.

He points out that their experience is that there are few facilities with flow-through that will have significant welfare benefits for fish by disinfecting freshwater intake in the growth phase.

"It is also a question of whether it is even feasible in practice and whether there is sufficient power to disinfect the water in certain areas," he points out.

The future of Nekton Settefisk

If the smolt manager looks five years ahead into the crystal ball, he believes that the company has achieved an expansion of the smolt facility in Smøla Municipality.

Vaccination of fish at Nekton Settefisk.

"Then we will have increased total production from the Aunvågen and Sagosen sites from 3.5 - 4 million smolt to about 6 - 6.5 million smolt annually. We will also have increased release weight, but a maximum of 300 grams, which is in accordance with our strategy for production in freshwater."

Wikan says that they also hope in the future to open up for environmental technology such as closed floating cages at sea for post-smolt production.

"Our goal is that we can then take part in the development and production of post-smolt in this segment."

New objectives

Regarding the current year and ambitions going forward, he says that they usually start the year with a day trip to a conference center.

"This year it will be the new Campus Kristiansund. Here we can work in peace and have full focus on evaluating last year and any measures for improvements. We set new objectives regarding smolt quality and performance in both the hatchery and sea phases."

Wikan says they also have a major goal of securing the necessary contracts and financing for the expansion of the hatchery facility in Smøla Municipality.

"Hopefully, construction will start as early as the fall of 2025, but I might be too optimistic here," he says with a smile.