A SCOTTISH company is making waves globally with technology aimed at improving the welfare of both farmed and wild caught fish.
Based in Dundee, Ace Aquatec – which began as a “one-man band” and now has 67 employees – is one of the few venture-backed companies in the UK, with its technology used across the world.
At the moment, its products have mainly been adopted by fish farmers but CEO Nathan Pyne-Carter hopes they will also be rolled out into the wild caught fish industry.
“Our mission is to improve welfare in both sectors,” he told the Sunday National. “By focusing on fish welfare,’ we want to show we can improve sustainability and improve profits in doing so.”
The firm now has offices in Glasgow and Chile as well as Dundee and is in the process of securing a base in Bergen in Norway.
Its technology, which includes AI cameras, is not only being used in salmon farming in northern Europe but also in bream and bass farming in the Mediterranean and tilapia farming in Latin America, with huge potential for further growth.
“I think it’s nice for people to know that there is a local business which is taking huge strides in addressing really big issues and has a global presence backed by international investors with significant sums,” said Pyne-Carter. “It’s brilliant for the local economy and brilliant for the academic groups we work with.”
The company was set up by his mother and scientist John Ace Hopkins, with Pyne-Carter joining the business in 2012.
“Science underpins absolutely everything that we do,” he said. “We are trying to provide good science, a good understanding of what the problem is and then use our expertise in the various fields to build upon that and provide the solutions.
“We don’t shy away from the issues but we think that by applying new technologies, we can really clean up aquaculture particularly and make it a very investable sector.”
One of the biggest issues the company is trying to address is improved accuracy in tracking the growth of fish. Poor estimates of growth lead to all sorts of problems such as excess feed causing algae blooms, over stocking, disease and lice infestations.
The company has developed AI cameras that are used initially to validate how many fish are in each cage and then track their health.
“There’s a huge discrepancy between what farmers think they’re putting into the pens and how many actually go in but these cameras are 99% accurate,” said Pyne-Carter.
The cameras are then used to see how the fish are growing and if there are any visible issues like wounds or lice. Each fish has its own markings that can be used to identify it and make monitoring even more accurate.
“We can basically give it an equivalent of an NHS health card so we are giving huge visibility to the farmers that they’ve not had previously,” Pyne-Carter explained.
“A lot has been guesswork in the past and that has then incurred all the issues that you see in farming. If you start to get this sort of data, however, you can then really personalise the husbandry of the fish according to the site or species.
“If the data is telling them that wounds are starting to emerge on the fish, like winter sores, they can change the feed to a more expensive feed, which they wouldn’t normally do, and that can help the wounds heal and get the fish back on a trajectory to recovery.”
The company is also working hard to roll out technology to make harvesting more humane as many species across the world are left to die on ice in fish farms and on fishing boats, rather than stunned.
The company has produced a unique in-water electric stunner that is more humane than ones previously used and which is being bought by the Shrimp Welfare Project to be put in place across the world to ensure prawns are humanely stunned, with similar work going on across the finfish sector. Every business that has tried the stunners has continued to use them.
On one tilapia farm in Indonesia, there was an initial scepticism about the system but it has not only improved the condition of the fish but also conditions for the workers.
“They’re very spiky powerful fish but after this was installed, the health and safety of the workers greatly improved,” said Pyne-Carter.
“The quality of the fish also went up massively because a poor technique at that stage is not only horrible for the fish but has a huge impact on the quality of the product. If you improve the welfare of the fish, you have an immediate knock-on effect in terms of the quality and the profitability.”
He added: “We’ve never had a stunner that’s gone to a site and hasn’t been accepted so that’s fantastic.
“From there, we can expand into the full scope of what we can do with our AI cameras because, by providing visibility, you are putting husbandry at the heart of it all. Maybe you’ve got a lice issue and therefore you can respond early before it gets out of control and becomes a very costly situation both to the farmer and to the environment.”
The company has a lice treatment system in development at the moment thanks to a European Horizon 2020 grant for £1.2 million.
“That’s quite an exciting opportunity for us as we are aware there are some welfare-compromising systems that are used currently,” said Pyne-Carter.
“What we want to do is provide a low-stress system that can remove lice as soon as they’re spotted and not wait until you get to a situation where it’s out of control.
“We’ve also got a whole load of modules that we’re working on from maturation detection, scale loss deformities and growth forecasting so that we can bring together huge amounts of information for the farmers, as well as provide the solutions.”
Despite opposition from various quarters, he believes aquaculture is here to stay as it is one way to help feed the world’s ever-growing population.
Pyne-Carter also believes the company’s technology can be used to improve the sustainability of wild-catch fishing as it could greatly reduce the amount of fish wastage as well as improve the well-being of the animals.
Is it fair to say the company is leading the way in fish welfare?
“I think globally, yeah, we’re definitely punching above our weight,” said Pyne-Carter.
