Looking back, thinking ahead: Andrew Bett

What have been the high points for you in 2025?

It has been a very positive year for the company with a number of important high points. These include finalising the design of our water exchange system, using Xylem mixer pumps housed in Astorplast HDPE piping in such a way that water exchange in full size 160-metre pens can be achieved in 60-90 minutes, computer modelled and approved by Aquastructures. It means enhanced water quality for farming salmon inside a 33,500 m³ cone shaped Smoltscreen, 100% free of sea lice, sea lice eggs, micro and macro jelly-fish – all 33,500,000 litres of water fully filtered through the Smoltscreen 150-micron mesh enclosure.

Another high has been Aquastructures’ certification of our Bloomshield cylinder-shaped enclosure, a semi-open salmon farming system protecting farmed salmon down to 15 metres, with the 150+80+200 μm (micrometre) mesh curtain deployed on the inside of the pen, allowing weekly ROV cleaning by Ocein Stealth cleaners and maintaining natural flow of water into the pen, alongside either Xylem pumped water or Moleaer Freya nanobubble systems – ensuring optimum water and dissolved oxygen conditions inside the pen.

Feedback from farmers

Aquastructures successfully audited our mesh supplier, SEFAR Romania, and our licensed manufacturer, Plany AS, in first quarter of 2025, and will conclude the audit of Salar Pursuits in Q1 2026 in order to meet the NYTEK23 certification required for Norwegian aquaculture.

We attended the Norwegian Sea Lice conference and the Aqua Nor in Trondheim, meeting salmon farmers from all over the world who were interested in our semi-open salmon farming systems and adopting the principle of ‘Protection through Filtration’, and their feedback was greatly appreciated.

We were also pleased to be advised of the granting of the Smoltscreen patent for Denmark (Faroes) in December.

What will be the most significant opportunities for Salar Pursuits in the coming year?

Salar Pursuits have established a consortium of suppliers for the Smoltscreen and Bloomshield semi-open salmon farming systems. Tests will be conducted by our mesh supplier, SEFAR AG, into the certified performance of UV treated nylon woven mesh, exclusively supplied into the aquaculture industry via Salar Pursuits Limited. The Bloomshield cylinder shape is Aquastructures-certified NS9415:2021 for immediate offer to the aquaculture industry. Aquastructures will kindly complete their analysis of the cone shaped Smoltscreen in early 2026 and the analysis on the cone-shaped Bloomshield (providing protection down to 25m) will follow in Q1. We are planning trials of all three products: cone-shaped Smoltscreen, cone-shaped Bloomshield and cylinder-shaped Bloomshield during 2026. We are expecting the European Patent Office to grant patents for the Smoltscreen and the Bloomshield in the first half of 2026.

Salar Pursuits submitted a response to the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries public consultation in December 2024 about its proposed Environmental Flexibility Scheme. We wanted the ministry to be aware of our successful pilot trial in Ireland in 2022-23 with the Marine Institute of Ireland, where we proved that salmon could be safely grown inside a porous nylon mesh enclosure (Smoltscreen) entirely free from infection from either sea lice or micro jellyfish.

Meeting Norway's criteria

We wanted our Smoltscreen semi-open salmon farming design to be recognised as an equivalent to closed facilities at sea, designed to retrofit into existing inshore salmon farming floating collars and moorings and using the principles of filtration.

Consequently, we were very pleased with the announced definition of the Environmental Flexibility Scheme on October 10 that defines the required criteria as:

• No sea lice or egg emissions from the farm enclosure
• No direct exchange of sea water into or out of the farm enclosure
• A water intake that has low risk of entry of sea lice larvae or eggs
• The collection and removal of sludge and feed residues
• The enclosure has a double protection against fish escape
• All relevant aquaculture standards are covered including NYTEK23 for Norwegian aquaculture.

Our Smoltscreen meets all these criteria, and Norwegian salmon farmers in production areas 3, 4 and 5 (which have been forced to reduce production under Norway’s “traffic light” system for controlling the emission of sea lice from salmon farms) may apply to the Directorate of Fisheries for the restoration of formerly withdrawn biomass by adopting the Smoltscreen semi-open salmon farming systems.

What do you see as the most significant opportunities and challenges for salmon farming in Scotland and globally in 2026?

We see huge opportunities for the Scottish and global salmon farming industry to adopt an increased capacity for growing big smolts, upwards from 500 grams, which will reduce time spent in open net pens, where farmed salmon are vulnerable to increasing sea lice pressures, infestations of jelly-fish and challenges from toxic algal blooms.

However, land-based capacity for growing smolts to 500 g+ is currently limited, there may be insufficient potential sites on land and seemingly the costs are ever escalating for land-based smolt production. We see the Smoltscreen semi-open salmon farming enclosures as a low-cost solution, available in 2026 for deployment into existing inshore farm sites, as a solution to capacity challenges and an opportunity to get ahead of the curve quickly to meet the new market demands for 500 g + post-smolts.

With a lead time of eight months, ten Smoltscreen enclosures can be deployed into an existing inshore farm site in Scotland, Norway, Faroes or Iceland and can provide 335,000 m3 of protected farming volume for smolt production.

We believe 2026 will be an exciting year for Salar Pursuits.

Monday: Anne Anderson, head of sustainability and development at salmon farmer Scottish Sea Farms