Publishable Summary
Using FishLiverHarvester, a machine for automatically harvesting fish livers it-is possible to separate the fish livers from the guts without using manual labor. This gives an increased quantity of raw materials and will increase the income for boat owners and crew.
One of the drawbacks with manual harvesting of fish livers is that it is labor intensive and only gives small extra incomes compared with the required labor. In Faroe Islands only 2%-7% were harvested during the period from 2014-2018 and in Norway only 5%-10% of the livers are harvested.
The liver machine is patented in Denmark, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Norway, Iceland, USA, China and Russia.
The advantages using FishLiverHarvester:
1. Using substantially fewer working hours than manual harvesting.
2. Increased revenue by harvesting the livers.
3. It is possible to utilize the livers from small machine gutted fish.
The only manual work using the FishLiverHarvester machine is to change the bags (packing material) when they are filled, except from common cleaning of the machine.
The goal segment for FishLiverHarvester is boat owners with boats fishing cod fish. In Faroe Islands there are about 80 fishing boats in the goal segment. In Iceland there are about 175 fishing boats in the primary goal segment. In Iceland a big part of the fish from small fishing boats is landed ungutted. Probably there is a demand for liver machines for the landbased operations. In Norway there are about 250 fishing boats in the goal segment and in Denmark about 183 boats are above 50 GRT. In Sweden there are about 100 boats in the goal segment.
The investment for a trawler in a FishLiverHarvester machine is about € 40.000 for the machine plus the installation costs of about € 8.000. The plan is that the company Nomatek will produce the machines in Torshavn. We also investigate the opportunity to produce the machine in Denmark in cooperation with Seagain ApS.
The objective of the FLH project was to amend the fish liver harvesting protype into new improved model and to test the machine during real life trawler fishing. The construction of the improved model was performed in the Nomatek factory in Torshavn. The tests were performed onboard the trawler Hamranes.
The results from the tests showed that the machine was suitable for the purpose, harvesting fish livers otherwise wasted. The test showed that with manually gutted fish the machine separated a substantial part of the livers from the rests of the guts, but the tests showed also that there could be a need for a bigger machine, to handle the really big fish.
The tests harvesting livers from machine gutted fish showed that the machine worked well, separating the livers from the rests harvesting a substantial amount of livers. The testing was performed in the period July-August, which is the worst period for fish liver harvesting because of low yield of liver and liver oils. There will be performed some small amendments.
