Artificial intelligence is transforming data utilisation in farmed blue food production and adding value along the way

One of the biggest challenges facing the aquaculture industry is information scarcity, insists ReelData AI Founder and CEO Mathew Zimola. Speaking at the recent Blue Food Innovation Summit in London in a session focused on harnessing AI tools for production technology, Zimola explained how difficult it is for producers to understand what’s happening under the water. This issue is emphasised by the widespread practice of “feed checking”, whereby a fish farmer will take scoops of fish feed and toss them across the water to see how the resident fish will react.

They’ll use this to determine fish behaviours – whether the fish are hungry, or if they’re full, he said. “But what we’ve seen is that you can ask an operator on a fish farm, how hungry the fish are, they’ll do a feed check. And then you can ask another person two minutes later to do the exact same thing, and you will get two different answers.”

ReelData AI’s solution is autonomous fish feeding technology. “It really was the first thing to show us that we can increase the growth of our industry with a single product play by anywhere between 10 and 20%. So, if you’re looking at a farm, that’s 10,000 tonnes, you can onboard an AI system that now makes that farm 11,000 tonnes,” Zimola said.

“You’re reducing the cost per kilo, you’re also reducing the energy costs associated with your farm because you’re now increasing the production level while keeping all the other operational things at steady state. There’s tonnes of value that can come from just onboarding AI solutions from the companies that are innovating in the space right now.”