“There are so many high-value resources lying on the seabed. We believe that if we are to close the food gap, we need to utilise those high-value resources in a sustainable way,” explains Øystein Tvedt, CEO of Ava Ocean.

Founded in Ålesund, Norway, in 2016, Ava Ocean is developing new ways of harvesting the abundant seafood resources of the seabed, in a gentle, yet effective manner.

THE GENTLE TOUCH

“Scallop dredging technology has been banned in Norway since 1992,” he says. “But there are still (globally) over 1000 vessels out there using dredging across the oceans”.

Dredging is a blanket ‘solution’ that destroys the seabed and everything in its path to get at the scallops. Instead, Ava has taken very advanced technologies used in the oil and gas industries and converted them to fishing, to collect scallops in a sustainable way.

“Our harvesting units operate just above the seabed. A pumping solution creates a water flow, lifting the scallops into the basket with little to no damage to the seabed. A sorting mechanism can also return non-scallops to the seabed and there’s camera technology so we can see where it’s best to harvest.

We call it precision harvesting. With AI, we can even live monitor the harvesting and collect data from the seabed. It helps us target the areas better, which is an important competitive advantage in making this type of fishery more efficient”.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?

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