In competition with 18 companies at Seafood Innovation Day NASF 2018, the seafood industry’s own innovation award went to Scottish innovation company Fixed Phage, which develops products that can fight specific bacterial strains.
The Scottish company Fixed Phage uses so-called “Bacteriophages”, a natural virus that combats specific bacteria. Bacteriophages are highly host specific, and a “phage” attacks only particular bacterial species or only certain strains within the species. The company develops natural products that can combat specific bacterial strains in agriculture, health, food and aquaculture.
For the first time, the seafood industry’s innovation award was awarded on Seafood Innovation Day at the world’s largest seafood conference, North Atlantic Seafood Forum, in Bergen, March 8th. The seafood industry itself has taken the initiative for the new prize aimed at stimulating and recognizing knowledge-based innovation and entrepreneurship.
The winner was selected by a live audience vote together with a professional jury. The award has a value of NOK 250,000 and consists of financial advice from Pareto Securities, legal advice from Thommessen, participation in next year’s North Atlantic Seafood Forum, membership of the NCE Seafood Innovation Cluster and a cash amount.
The conclusion of the jury:
The Award Committee evaluated the companies and selected the winner based on the following criteria: Innovation, Market Potential and Sustainability. The winner has developed an innovative product that addresses many of the major challenges of contemporary seafood production, like food safety, fighting antibiotic resistance and feed efficiency.The market potential is huge, and the winner has a product that is easily scalable and has also an operational plan for market penetration and commercialization in near future.The winner is addressing challenges that we are facing for developing of a sustainable seafood industry, and the product itself is environmental friendly.
“To reach the seafood industry’s ambitious vision of production growth, we must facilitate innovation and digital development,” said Tanja Hoel, general manager of The Seafood Innovation Cluster. “It is important to show exciting products that can contribute to new solutions in the seafood industry”.