There was so much interest in the experimental Loppa gutting and heading machine for smaller fishing boats at the last Nor-Fishing exhibition that its inventors had every reason to push ahead with development and a commercial version will make its debut at Nor-Fishing this year.
The Loppa heading and gutting machine started as a school project, but when his friends lost interest, Oddbjørn Gudmundsen continued working on it as a solo project, until Marius Strømmen came in as an investor to set up manufacturing company Havfront. Now the Loppa is expected to be ready to be showcased at Nor-Fishing in Trondheim this year, with particular interest expected from the coastal sector.
The machine is designed to be used by a single operator to handle cod, haddock, saithe and other roundfish of between 1-8kg at a rate of twelve fish per minute. The Loppa is a very compact design compared to other gutting machines on the market.
It is expected to do much of the work of gutting and cleaning fish that is currently done by hand, taking out much of the time-consuming labour or handling catches.
Just one metre in height and measuring 85 by 40cm, the Loppa weighs approximately 160kg. The compact design is expected to make this machine especially attractive to vessel operators on the coastal fleet sector of boats under 90 ft.
