More mussels with cooperation and co-cultivation
Blå Mat's young researchers have started their projects, which are carried out in close collaboration between academia and industry. A concrete example of this was when Marica Andersson, a PhD student at the University of Gothenburg, and Kristina Bergman, a PhD student at KTH, visited Scanfjord on Orust. They were given a tour of the facility and also blue mussels that will be used in a student project that is closely related to Marica Andersson's research on co-cultivation.
The young researchers were shown around by Christian Rinmad, Sales Manager at Scanfjord. He explained that Scanfjord, which is a co-financier of Blue Food, has Sweden's largest mussel farm of organically reared blue mussels. They followed the mussels' journey from freshly harvested from the farm, where they are transported in large bags, to how they are separated, sorted, quality controlled, packaged and stored before being transported to customers. Christian Rinmad also explained that the waste is ground up and used as fertilizer by local farmers.
Sustainable production and consumption of seafood
The review of mussel production was of particular interest to Kristina Bergman, whose research focuses on guiding the sustainable production and consumption of seafood - fish, shellfish and algae. Mussels are particularly interesting because they contain so many of the beneficial substances mainly found in seafood and meat, but at the same time have a much smaller environmental footprint than other food from the animal kingdom.
In the car back, they were joined by a number of blue mussels. They will be used in a student project closely related to Marica Andersson's research on co-culture of organisms. In her PhD project, she will evaluate and investigate how different organisms in land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are affected by co-culture, both in terms of growth, nutrient composition, health and welfare. She will also investigate how co-culture affects water quality in the systems, as extractive species purify water by taking up nutrients and particles.
Less nutrients and an additional nutrient branch
The student project that the mussels will be used in involves evaluating and comparing how effective two bivalves, blue mussels and Japanese giant oysters, are at absorbing nutrients from water.
- "Both blue mussels and oysters are excellent for cultivation in connection with fish farms," says Marica Andersson, "they are both attractive products on the Swedish market and can, in addition to purifying the water, provide a new source of income for the farmer.
The mussels and oysters will be kept in separate aquariums with different concentrations of fish feces in the water. The students will evaluate their filtration capacity by measuring the concentration of nutrients and the amount of particles in the aquarium water over time.
In the future, we can hopefully look forward to greater and even more environmentally friendly Swedish production of mussels, oysters, fish and seaweed as the results of the research are managed by the entrepreneurs who provide us with blue food.
Photo: Marica Andersson