Case Study

New Zealand King Salmon Achieves 97% Biomass Accuracy with Innovasea’s BiomassPro  

“With BiomassPro, we have an accurate, effective way to measure growth. This should allow us to better monitor growth trends over their life cycle and provide more accurate and high-resolution data to our sales and processing teams in advance of harvest.”  

 Dr. Zac Waddington Fish Health and Welfare Manager, New Zealand King Salmon  

About New Zealand King Salmon 

New Zealand King Salmon is the largest producer of farmed King Salmon supplying over 50% of the world’s species. They have been in operation for over 35 years and today oversee two freshwater hatcheries and up to 50 seawater pens located at six different sites throughout New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds

Challenge  

As the world’s largest farm producer of King Salmon, New Zealand King Salmon must routinely and accurately track fish growth to meet critical production benchmarks in advance of each harvest. Doing so requires meticulously tracking their different strategies of fish across numerous sites. 

Previously, New Zealand King Salmon relied on biomass camera technology which required the hard-wired deployment of a large, bulky camera in each pen, followed by a technician manually reviewing all footage and annotating fish for biomass estimation.  

This process was effectively a full-time position for one technician and involved the review of many hours of footage each month to generate a biomass estimate from a relatively small sample size. 

Furthermore, this cumbersome approach was impractical to scale, made the samples vulnerable to human-induced biases, and was too time-consuming to provide actionable insights. In addition, the camera technology could only be deployed in ideal weather conditions and was still very prone to damage and errors in the field given the harsh nature of marine environments. This created significant difficulties with scheduling and generating timely data for review.   

Finally, the small sample size collected meant that an accurate prediction of population distribution wasn’t possible. 

Solution 

Biomass Pro Camera on the doc at New Zealand King Salmon

Innovasea’s Biomass Pro camera

New Zealand King Salmon partnered with Innovasea, beginning in 2023, to evaluate the BiomassPro camera, a wireless, battery-operated solution that combines stereoscopic imaging with AI to automatically estimate the size and weight of fish stocks.   

With this lightweight, easy-to-move camera, New Zealand King Salmon simply places the device in each pen and accesses detailed reports the following day on the BiomassPro dashboard. Setup and data retrieval takes less than 15 minutes, and because it’s wireless, it’s easy to move to each location. 

The reporting software’s cloud-based capabilities eliminated the need for manual data entry and analysis, allowing the team to view, analyze, and export their results for more data-driven decisions. By eliminating this once manual process, they have more time to dedicate to other vital farm operations while confidently monitoring key growth metrics. 

 Additionally, the camera’s AI algorithm was explicitly designed to measure King Salmon – delivering a biomass accuracy of 97% at harvest.  It also allowed the farm to better spot and address welfare and/or performance issues within individual pens given the ability to review images which have been captured.  

Results  

Innovasea’s BiomassPro camera and estimation solution empowers New Zealand King Salmon to optimize operations and maximize returns.   

  • Precise forecasting: 97% biomass accuracy allows New Zealand King Salmon to track progress and streamline logistics.  
  • Improved efficiency: The lightweight, battery-operated camera autonomously monitors fish growth and can be moved quickly from pen to pen with no requirement for hard-wired deployment in the marine environment.
  • Optimized production: Improved data collection and processing makes it easy to track performance and address areas of concern.
  • Faster data collection: Automatic data collection and biomass analysis allows the team to set up and collect data in just 15 minutes each day.  

The daily deployment and retrieval of the BiomassPro camera is very simple and can be done by site staff. Since the camera isn’t wired to any surface IT or power, there isn’t the risk of water ingress, and the deployment and movement of the camera into different pens is much easier than our previous system.”

Graeme Aldridge
Fish Welfare & Performance Technician, New Zealand King Salmon 

Aerial view of NZKS

Aerial view of New Zealand King Salmon

“Innovasea’s BiomassPro solution allows us to more accurately monitor the growth and performance of our fish over time. This has significant implications for production and sales planning.” 

Dr. Zac Waddington- Fish Health and Welfare Manager, New Zealand King Salmon 
Densely populated fish

Want to learn more?

Contact Innovasea today to find out how our complete precision aquaculture solution can improve operations at your site.