By David Harvey and Costa Skotidas, International Aquafeed, UK
The latest and eighteenth edition of North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) took place from March 5-7, with a record turnout for the second time in a row. 964 delegates representing 400 companies and coming from over 30 different countries attended the event, including our very own Costa Skotidas, Content Development Manager, who was in attendance for all three days of the event and got the chance to meet with some of the speakers and attendees.
When discussing the record-breaking event, André Akse, General Manager of NASF stated “We are grateful and humble to the fact that so many executives and industry leaders prioritise to join NASF in Bergen these days. And in this way, we contribute to secure the North Atlantic Seafood Forum’s position as the world’s largest seafood business conference, and probably the best networking event in Seafood!”
Talking to Costa Skotidas about NASF 2024, Nina Stangeland from Grieg Seafood said, “It’s a great event. You get the latest information in the seafood industry by attending the event. Reports made, market data analysis etc. And it’s great to see new innovation also. And I think it’s the perfect place to meet the right people that you need to talk to in the industry.”
This idea of NASF being one of the go-to events for networking and marketing within the Aquaculture industry appeared to be a consistent theme across many of the attendees, with Kjartan Maestad from Cargill stating “It’s a really important meeting place for business people because it has a standing that makes people from all over the world come and attend. So it’s a really good place to meet a lot of different people in addition to all the interesting presentation that’s being given.”
Seafood Innovation Award
One key feature of NASF this year was the Seafood Innovation Award. This award gives chosen start-ups the opportunity to showcase innovative business ideas to potential customers, partners, and investors as well as receiving NOK 100,000 if they win. The winner of the award this year was Blue Lice, a Norway based company founded in 2017. Blue Lice use their system to attract and capture sea lice before they can reach salmon by using nothing but light, an idea that could prove to be greatly beneficial as salmon lice is one of the biggest threats to fish welfare in the industry today. We got the chance to talk to Caroline from Blue Lice after they were presented with the award and when asked what they would do with the winnings they said “I’m also looking at this being like the money that we can use for marketing, something fun, because we just upgraded our business. Our logo and our branding and this could be some extra money we can use on that. We’re more heading into growth and the markets.”
Technology is becoming a more important part of our industry each day, this is one of the many reasons we started the Fish Farming Technology section of our magazine, and NASF has discovered this too and decided to dedicate an entire day to technology with Technology Tuesday. Technology Tuesday took place on the first day of the conference and was dedicated to advancements and new technology initiatives, which included not only companies showing off their latest and greatest technological advancements but also 70 presentations on advancements or technological solutions. One such presentation was by Sarah Carroll from MariHealth who described her speech during Technology Tuesday as “the industry is quite reactive to most of the solutions that they have at the moment. So our idea really is to shift that paradigm and be part of the change and be more proactive in our approach.”
“Farming is quite intensive as you know. And it was stresses very much likely to particularly the disease outbreaks. And so, I think for us we really wants to be part of the change and manage stress ahead of time.”
Vidar Uglane, CCO and Co-Founder of Solution Seeker also had a speech at the event, and when talking to Costa afterward he said that one of the biggest challenges facing the fish farming sector was “they’re a bit tired of hearing about how much you should store data and how much you should share it and how much you should actually use it. So I think they want to see the actual solutions.
“I think you need to show value through actual applications and actual better decisions. I think instead of just talking about it”
The CEO of Stolt farms gave a presentation about their company – focusing on their expertise and uniqueness within the industry. The talk given by Brett Glencross, Chairman of IFFO, also gathered attention at the event. He spoke about the importance of being objective when we look at sustainability. “What we are trying to do at IFFO is to coordinate a global a life cycle assessment for the entire marine ingredients industry from the producers”, Brett commented.
Gaëtan Fabritius, Chief Business Officer for Bioceanor gave a presentation on water quality forecast and how water quality impact production and fish welfare.
We also had a chance to meet Alex Diana, Product Manager at Innovafeed, who spoke at the event as well. “In our presentation, we prioritized key insights from Innovafeed’s Impact Report to underscore our commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility. We’re emphasizing how our “Tech for Impact” model addresses pressing global challenges such as Climate Change, Biodiversity loss, Food Security, and Local Socio-Economic Impact. We’re highlighting specific strategies outlined in the report, including reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent, preserving forage fish, meeting increased protein demand sustainably, and creating local job opportunities.”
NASF will return next year, in Bergen on March 4-6, the hosts have already begun planning the event and are no doubt looking to break records for a third time. We will no doubt be in attendance to help them with their mission and look forward to seeing you all there!
