© Aquaticode
Hatcheries producing sea bass and sea bream have traditionally relied on manual visual assessment to identify weak or unviable fish at an early stage. This process is labour-intensive, highly variable and provides little biological accuracy at the earliest life stages.
Aquaticode has entered into an agreement with Cooke España to develop a new artificial inteligence (AI) based phenotyping product line aimed at supporting earlier and more consistent decision-making in bass and bream hatcheries. The collaboration explores how AI phenotyping can be applied to fry at commercial scale, representing a new direction for the industry.
“Early-stage decisions have an outsized impact on the sustainability and profitability of aquaculture,” said Stian Rognlid, chief executive officer of Aquaticode, in a press release. “This collaboration is about exploring how AI phenotyping can help hatcheries make those decisions earlier, with greater biological insight.”
In hatchery production, identification of developmental issues and weakness indicators allows producers to reduce unnecessary feed, labour, tank capacity and energy use. This results in lower production costs, more uniform growth groups, improved welfare outcomes, and a reduced environmental footprint through decreased feed waste and associated emissions.
“In sea bass and sea bream, variation strongly influences long-term performance,” said Alberto Morente, juvenile production manager, Cooke España. “Exploring a technology-driven approach to identifying unviable fry allows us to improve animal welfare, as well as direct space, feed, and attention toward stronger groups from the start. It brings scientific precision to a step of the production cycle that has historically depended on manual judgement.”
The agreement represents an expansion of Aquaticode’s species roadmap and aligns with the company’s broader strategy to make AI-based phenotyping available across more species and more stages of the aquaculture value chain.
