Fiskifréttir recently published an article about the innovative company OptiTog, which has attracted attention for its groundbreaking solutions for shrimp and demersal fishing, based on herding fish and shrimp using directional light. OptiTog was founded in 2014, and The New Business Venture Fund Kría first invested in the company through its Frumsjóður 2023 investment initiative.
OptiTog’s goal is to increase catches, protect the seabed and reduce vessels’ energy consumption. Five fishing vessels are now working with OptiTog and using its technology.
Halla Jónsdóttir, a biologist and one of the people behind OptiTog, says this milestone is significant and confirms that OptiTog’s solutions have practical value in the day-to-day operations of fishing vessels.
OptiTog states on its website:
“OptiTog focuses on the next generation of fishing gear technology – bringing fishing gear into the 21st century. We address the urgent and largely unmet need for rapid and significant improvements in fishing gear efficiency. Our team combines decades of engineering experience with extensive research and development expertise from the fishing gear industry.”
The technology involves using light to herd shrimp, and potentially demersal fish, into a trawl. Halla says statistically significant results have shown that light can be used to lift shrimp off the seabed and guide them into a bottom trawl designed to operate approximately 30 cm above the seabed. In previous trials, a shrimp trawler operating in Icelandic waters increased its catch by 12–18% using the lighting technology. The vessel was fishing with twin trawls, with the lighting equipment installed on one of them. The trawl equipped with the lighting technology caught 12–18% more shrimp than the trawl without it.
“We work closely with captains and fishing company managers. We draw on their commercial fishing experience to develop equipment that meets their needs and test prototypes under real operating conditions at sea. This collaboration is extremely important to us. Captains and fishing company managers understand both the operational realities and the challenges that need to be addressed on board, and that knowledge feeds directly into the development of our equipment,” says Halla.
She says the collaboration has generated significantly more experience and data from commercial fishing operations over the past two years. The data is being used both to improve OptiTog’s existing solutions and to support the continued development of new equipment.
Read the full Fiskifréttir article here.
