Icelandic innovator Optitog, the company behind the development of an undersea light rig to herd shrimp into a trawl, has signed a distribution agreement with Norwegian company Evotec, which aims to make this new shrimp catching system more widely available.
Optitog has been developing this for a number of years, and has most recently been testing its light setup on shrimp trawlers in Iceland, the Faroes and Norway.
By skimming a few centimetres above the seabed to scoop up shrimp rooted out of the ground by the lights, Optitog’s trawl concept has the big advantage of having less that 0.5% ground contact, a serious point in its favour in a commercial environment in which disturbance of the seabed habitat is already a major consideration.
‘I’m delighted that we are signing an agreement that’s the culmination of working together on this for the last two years,’ Optitog’s Halla Jónsdóttir said.
‘The ideas behind this go back to 2003, so we have been working on this for quite a while.’
The development has been supported by fishing company Tjaldtangi, which operates shrimp trawler Klakkur, the Marine Research Institute, the University of Reykjavík, IceTec, the Iceland Ocean Cluster and the Icelandic Research Fund have all supported Optitog’s work.
‘This is an interesting technology for us and we see this as a big game-changer,’ said Evotec’s Håkon Woldsund.
‘This fits in well with what Evotec is doing – the name stands for Environmental Technology – and we aim to be an important part of this and supporting customers. We know it works, and now we’re going to make it work even better.’
He added that Evotec’s portfolio includes producing some of the most efficient winches on the market, as well as being active it the land-based aquaculture sector with some innovative systems – and the Optitog system complements the work that Evotec is already doing.
‘We know we are working with some very competent people on this and we aim to change the market for fishing shrimp, reducing fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions per kilo of caught shrimp,’ he said.
Halla Jónsdóttir said that the light rig is going on board Icelandic trawler Klakkur this summer to continue evaluating and perfecting its efficiency.
‘Updates to come,’ she said.
