Official opening of AquaGen’s Profunda facility

AquaGen’s new full-cycle facility, Profunda, was officially opened on the 21st August 2023. As Norway’s only land-based full-cycle broodstock and egg production facility, Profunda will deliver biosecure salmon eggs of top quality all year round and aim to supply customers across the globe.

AquaGen’s Profunda facility is in Barstadvik in Ørsta municipality. This is a full-cycle, land-based facility created to produce salmon eggs. This means that the fish spends their whole life within the facility and under optimal conditions. The fish is physically separated from the environment, ensuring a unique biosecurity and exceptional production conditions. Through thousands of years the river “Storelva” in Barstadvik has distributed glacial deposits formed during the last ice age, thus creating the foundation for naturally cleaned groundwater through the valley and into the fjord. We have established wells for fresh and marine groundwater which supplies the facility with totally pure water, and Profunda is thus unique in Norway. The good access to clean groundwater, alongside several other biosecurity steps, is the reason why Profunda can deliver specific pathogen free salmon eggs throughout the year, enabling deliveries of eggs across the globe.

AquaGen purchased Profunda in 2017, at a stage when the facility produced broodstock salmon for other customers. In 2018 the facility was expanded with 2000 m³ tank-volume for expanded broodstock capacity. In 2020 we started the work to turn Profunda into a full-cycle land-based facility for egg production. It has been a comprehensive process to establish wells for fresh groundwater and to expand the concession for fresh-water withdrawal. We have built a freshwater department for broodstock, an egg harvesting line, an egg incubation department, technical facilities and a new administration area. Artec Aqua has been the turnkey contractor throughout the project and has delivered within the quality, price, and timeframe we agreed upon.

The first batch of eggs were delivered in May 2023, and since then our special egg-trucks, with our in-house drivers, have delivered many batches within Norway. We have also sent several deliveries to the USA. The Profunda facility has a capacity of about 100 million eggs per year, throughout the year. Profunda will deliver eggs to sea-based and land-based production, but the export market will be prioritized once the necessary permissions are in place,

In order to export eggs to the whole world the facility needs to have the status as a specific pathogen free segment from the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). This requires a two-year surveillance period, which will take us to March 2025. The surveillance will document that the facility is pathogen free and independent from the surroundings. When we designed and established the biosecurity within the facility, we have had an excellent collaboration process with the expert veterinary competency at both the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.

We sent several generations of our newest genetics to Profunda before the surveillance period started, and the facility is not dependent on new biological material. The fish at Profunda has sibling batches in sea-based production and thus we have a very wide foundation to further develop the genetics for food-fish production at different types of production facilities.

Profunda will strengthen AquaGen’s position as a leading supplier of the best salmon genetics in the world market, with specific pathogen free eggs delivered throughout the year.

For more information about Profunda contact:

Håvard Ramsfjell, Technical Manager, AquaGen

+47 997 24 301