A culture of innovation
Innovation
We take pride in being pioneers of the fish vaccination industry and we are continually seeking new ways to add value for our clients through the development of innovative fish farming equipment here in the UK and in Norway.
Inocubot 1
We first had the idea to automate manual vaccination in 2003. We won a UK Government SMART grant to look at the feasibility of building a system that could do this. We wanted a machine driven by a vision system that could recognise individual features on a fish and from those features, determine the vaccination point. This project made us realise we were too far ahead of the curve and technology would have to take a big leap forward for us to realise our idea.
Fast forward to 2013 when we started to take a serious look at automation again as there had been huge advances in vision systems, algorithm development and robotics. From 2013 onwards we started to develop the idea and in 2017 we were confident enough to commission the building of a proof-of-concept system called “The Inocubot”.
The success of this system has allowed us to build a three-robot commercial prototype with funding from the Scottish Government and a small equity raise. The coronavirus interrupted our planned roll out of this system but we are now getting back on track and plan to roll out the first system for Q4 2021.
Inocubot 2
The Inocubot 2 concept was driven by an American fish farming company looking for a solution to vaccinate very small fish.
We teamed up with the Agri-Epi centre in Edinburgh and applied for grant funding through the CEFAS Seafood Innovation fund where we secured funding of £250,000. This project is on-going.
https://agri-epicentre.com/news/transforming-scotlands-aquaculture-industry/
Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance in Vietnamese Catfish
We have partnered with Stirling Universities Aquaculture Institute in a £680,000 project to help develop vaccination strategies through training and machine development to help reduce antimicrobial use.
Dr Margaret Crumlish, of Stirling’s Institute of Aquaculture, is leading the new project.
https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2019/06/680k-study-to-tackle-aquaculture-disease/
