Optimar focuses on fish health with new range of products

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Optimar has launched a range of sustainable solutions aimed at ensuring fish welfare and keeping produce as fresh as possible.

The Norwegian company, which has branches in Romania, Spain and north-west US, has unveiled a new blast freezer, new ‘stun and bleed’ solution and a monitor that uses sonar to analyse fish health and optimise conditions.

freezer

The Otiblast freezer can handle multiple freezing requirements Photo: Optimar

The Optiblast freezer was developed in response to increasing volumes of air-freighted produce. Its automated feeding system gives fast loading/unloading, meaning fish is frozen as quickly as possible whilst multiple trays and a lift system ensures each product is in the correct place.

“One of the many advantages compared with the traditional method of blast tunnels is that everything is left in the freezer apart from the trays and the product so you don’t have to cool down and warm up again all the metal every day as you do with the racks in a blast freezer,” said Per Vidar Lange, sales manager Aqua Optimar.

The unit’s differentiated and individual freezing means that both whole and filleted fish can be catered for at the same time. “It’s ok to freeze boxes for maybe 18 hours alongside fillets which only need 30 minutes,” said Per Vidar Lange.

Stun and bleed

Optimar has also developed a new system for stun and bleed vessels which is said to be a more efficient way of harvesting fish than wellboats. “With the stun and bleed boats you can go out and harvest the right amount of fish at the right time,” said Hans Owen Thunem, vice president Aqua Optimar.

stun

The stun and bleed solution Photo: Optimar

Key advantages of the stun and bleed solution include a gill-cutting robot that slaughters the fish in a humane and efficient way, high capacity with weight estimation and a species recognition to allow sorting and removal of cleaner fish. Cooling is quick and cleaning is automated.

Fish enter the vessel into the swimming unit and are fed head-first into an electric stunner. Each fish then passes through a 3D laser and camera where its species is determined and weight estimated before through the gill-cutting en route to the storage tanks.

Aquaculture Biomass Monitor

The company has also released a Biomass Monitor to optimise feed consumption and document fish health. Fully automated and maintenance free, the monitor floats on the surface of each pen, using sonar to analyse behaviour without disturbing the fish.

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