Cyber-Marine

Cyber-Marine is asking everyone to think of seafood differently. Rather than just seeing the meat and the ‘bits left behind’, we want New Zealanders to see the whole harvest as a source of valuable components with multiple different uses; some of which are food, and others that range from cosmetics to 3D-printed bioplastics. The key is recognising that there should be no waste, just opportunities to utilise this valuable resource.

What if we could build a smart factory with instantaneous analysis that could tell us exactly what is arriving at the factory? What if we could combine existing processing technology with new approaches that could allow us to get all the molecules out, using only environmentally friendly techniques? If we could do this we could optimise the range of products, maximise harvest utilisation and generate the highest value. This is Cyber-Marine.

Aotearoa New Zealand has more than 100 commercial fish species. This creates an enormous challenge for full utilisation of our seafood biomass. The material entering a processing plant is extremely complex and varies hugely from day to day. We have to deal with all these species, large seasonal changes in composition, mixtures of species, and even whether we’re getting whole fish or the left-overs from filleting. We can analyse this material chemically but it takes days to get the results, long after the harvest had been processed.

The MBIE-funded Cyber-Marine research programme is developing new ways to process seafood – whether that’s fish or shellfish, wild-caught or aquaculture. Cyber-Marine will use new in-line analytical methods so the harvest can be analysed in real-time, as well as create artificial intelligence tools to calculate the most valuable combination of products based on composition and market knowledge, whilst generating no waste. The programme is building technology suites to process different marine organisms in the most efficient and sustainable way to extract the widest array of useful products. Cyber-Marine will change the seafood sector into a marine products industry, with a broad product portfolio, a focus on using 100% of the harvest, new low impact processes and delivery of maximum value.