A consortium of seafood companies and research and development partners has been awarded €1m (Euros) in European Union funding to develop a new approach to producing dried fish products.
The Safetrackfood Consortium has won backing from the EU to carry out scientific research to develop technology to make fish drying processes more efficient and increase commercial viability.
Four SME companies (Athena Seafoods for Norway, AFOS from the UK, Il Ceppo form Italy and EMS from the Nertherlands and three R&D organisations, (EII from Estonia, Nofima from Norway and Fraunhofer from Germany, have joined together to pool their expertise in developing both the process and the path to market.
Mike Sutton, Exploitation Manager for the consortium said: “Research into traditional outdoor drying shows that up to 40 per cent of dried fish product is lost due to poor process quality.
“Our mission is to develop an innovative indoor process line for maturing and drying a variety of fish species with an Automated Bioprocess Control System to assure product safety and quality.
“Traditional drying is a slow process but we aim to have a system that will be significantly quicker and replicating product quality from each drying cycle thus delivering greater viability to commercial producers and better value for the consumer.”
Mr Sutton, who is also MD of AFOS, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of processing equipment for the seafood industry, added: “This is an exciting process which brings together some of Europe’s most respected companies who will be pooling their immense expertise and experience to bring this project to fruition over the next two years.”