SFI Harvest - Technologies for sustainable biomarine value creation

In SFI Harvest, researchers, industry stakeholders, and public authorities collaborate across the entire value chain to develop technology for detecting, selecting, and predicting profitable occurrences of the low-trophic marine species like krill and Calanus, as well as harvesting and processing them in a sustainable manner. We need more knowledge about the role these species play in the broader marine ecosystem, including the carbon pump. To determine the abundance of zooplankton and mesopelagic fish, autonomous systems are used to map and monitor their presence and concentration. Some highlights from 2025: In both 2024 and 2025, field trials have been conducted where autonomous vehicles, both above and below water, collaborate to locate larger concentrations of Calanus. These vehicles search in areas identified as promising by models developed by researchers in SFI Harvest. When the vehicles detect Calanus, they transmit this information to the harvesting operators. The work carried out in 2025 builds on experiences from the previous year’s field trials. - Further development of models for Calanus in Norwegian waters, as well as krill models in the Southern Ocean, which are combined with biological models. - Experimental fishing with a prototype trawl and onboard processing in 2025. - The center’s first PhD defense has taken place! Enis Noyan Kostak has submitted and defended his doctoral thesis titled: “Catch and energy efficiency in trawls targeting mesopelagic fish, Calanus and northern krill.” - Publication of results from feeding trials where mesopelagic fish were used in feed for mink and salmon. - The center has welcomed Salmon Group as a new partner. - We aim to develop a method for assessing the sustainability of the value chain for Calanus products, from harvest to finished product. More information, publications, and news can be found at sfiharvest.no.

The ocean hosts large number of species that could improve food security, but are currently either not harvested or only marginally utilised. SFI Harvest will develop knowledge and technologies for harvesting and processing of lower-trophic marine species to enable sustainable growth of Norway's biomarine industries. It will draw upon Norway's leading position in the ocean and offshore sectors, bringing together pioneering shipowners, key technology providers, producers of aqua feed and -raw materials, SINTEF Ocean and other strong research groups, including SFF AMOS. The centre’s industry partners will form an innovation board to speed up the time-to-market of innovations based on the centre’s activities. The centre integrates six research areas: Survey technology, Ecosystem dynamics, Decision support, Harvesting technology, Product development, and Business models. The main outcomes of the centre’s activities will be sensor technology for cost-efficient mapping and monitoring of marine species, a model predicting good fishing grounds and variability in the ecosystem, decision support allowing fishermen to save fuel and time, predicting catch potential, selective and energy-efficient fishing gears, on-board processing lines for separating the catch by species and preserving quality, rapid catch quality measurement, new land-based feed and food ingredient processes, guidelines for resource allocation and vertical value chain coordination, and a sustainability assessment tool for value chains. This will enable the sustainable harvesting of new marine species and the establishment of a new biomarine value chain. Further, the centre will enable Norway to lead the technological development for the mesopelagic and low-trophic fisheries, creating new global market opportunities for the centre’s industrial partners. The technologies developed will also support cross-over solutions for today's commercial fisheries and for challenges like removing plastic from the oceans.