The Open Ocean Fish Cage

Project Information

OpenOceanFC

Grant agreement ID: 782874

DOI 10.3030/782874

Closed project

EC signature date 1 August 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 28 February 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost € 71 429,00

EU contribution € 50 000,00

Coordinated by

BLUE FARM AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OpenOceanFC (The Open Ocean Fish Cage)

Reporting period: 2017-09-01 to 2018-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Blue Farm attempts to enable the fish farming industry to move their production from today’s protected inshore ocean space to harsh weather conditions of the open ocean. This is important to increase production in fish farms. Present fish farm cages rely on sheltered waters, such as islands or fjords, and many of the best sheltered areas are allready fully utilised. Allowing us to move production offshore will open new areas to fish farming, giving the world a larger source of resources efficient protein-rich Food.

This feasability study has plannet marketability and a pilot for our solution. This is done through four tasks, and a summary:
1) Planning construction of the fish cage.
2) Planning operation of the cish cage
3) IPR strategy
4) Market, competitors and pricing.
5) Summary and conclusions of business plan.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

1) Planning construction of the fish cage.
Have done high-level calculations for construction of a pilot in cooperation with subcontractors. This include both the concrete elements, the fish net and operations.

2) Planning operation of the fish cage.
We got a cooperation with a fish farmer, and have been in Close dialogue with the government about a license to operate (and are in the final stages). The subtask we specified on metocean data was done by the Fish farmer we cooperate With.

3) IPR strategy
We made a report on several new areas to patent. So far we have to approved patents.

4) Market, competitors and pricing.
ROI was calculated, and we did a marketing strategy of our product.

5) Summary and conclusions of business plan.
Our summary concluded that we need some more time before we start a phase 2 pilot, as we need to wait for a government License and further financial committment from the fish farmer.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In the project we did a feasability study that covered the the marketability and planning of a pilot for our solution. Our fish cage has capabilities well beyond present fish cages, and includes innovative patent-protected designs allowing low-cost construction of offshore fish cages. At the same time, the fish cage was developed before the start of the project. This project helped reduce the barrier to commercialising the fish cage. The core impact of the project lies in helping to commercialise the innovation, and through this helping to open up the vast offshore ocean space to aquaculture.