Per Sandberg was the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture when Marine Donut was granted a development permit. He remembers the project well and wasted no time accepting our invitation to visit the soon-to-be-completed fish farming facility.
"It's almost as if you become religious when you walk around and see this," Sandberg says during the tour, with Intrafish also present.
The purpose of the development concessions was to accelerate the development of technology that could solve one or more of the environmental and spatial challenges faced by the aquaculture industry, such as sea lice, escapees, and local pollution. As the Minister of Fisheries, Sandberg was a driving force behind implementing the solution, and he is very satisfied with the result.
"This is exactly what we were looking for, with new technology that is sustainable and enables the growth we all desire in the industry."
Nils-Johan Tufte, CEO of Bluegreen, shows Sandberg a picture taken in the minister's office back in 2019. He is clearly proud of the innovation.
"The production cost per kilo will be competitive. It eliminates the need for delousing treatments, has twice the density, shorter downtime, lower mortality, and better feed conversion ratio. It will be exciting to verify the hypotheses."
Next week, the Marine Donut will be launched at sea and transported on a barge up to Romsdalen. The journey covers a distance of 510 nautical miles.
"SalMar is ready to receive it, and the plan is to fill the Donut with fish sometime during the summer. Then, 200,000 2.5 kg salmon will swim in the fish volume of 22,000 cubic meters."
