Administrators appointed at innovative fish vaccination firm Aqualife Services
Joint administrators have been appointed to Stirling-based fish vaccination specialist Aqualife Services Ltd after the company ceased trading.
Alistair McAlinden and Geoff Jacobs from Interpath were appointed joint administrators last Wednesday, August 6.
Aqualife had operated for nearly 30 years, initially providing teams that vaccinated fish by hand in Scotland and Norway, and more recently developing its Inoca portable semi-automated vaccination technology that could be used in places such as Asia and Africa.
Interpath said in a press release that Aqualife had begun outsourcing its assembly operations to improve scalability. However, following the postponement of key orders from Canadian customers and ongoing commercial pressures amidst international tariff uncertainty, the business ceased trading prior to the appointment of the administrators and all employees were made redundant upon the appointment of McAlinden and Jacobs.
The joint administrators are now focused on winding down the business operations and preparing for a business and asset sale.
Contract delays
McAlinden, head of Scotland at Interpath, said: “Aqualife was a pioneer in the use of robotic technology in aquaculture and fish vaccination. It had built a strong reputation for precision and innovation. Unfortunately, the business faced a number of challenges in recent years, including delays to key contracts and increasing financial pressures.”
Jacobs, managing director at Interpath, said: “Our immediate priority is to support impacted employees and to explore options for the sale of the business and its assets. Given the anticipated interest from players in the global aquaculture sector, interested parties are encouraged to contact us as matter of urgency.”
In December 2021, Aqualife chief executive Gordon Jeffrey told Fish Farming Expert that the company had vaccinated more than 1.6 billion fish worth £10 billion since starting up in 1996.
Travel restrictions
It developed its Inoca technology after Covid-related travel restrictions prevented its teams of trained vaccinators going abroad to major markets such as Norway. Aqualife had already been working on the Inocubot, a fully automatic system, but switched development to Inoca.
“The main reason for this was that our traditional business model of sending teams of people around the world to vaccinate fish, doesn’t work with travel restrictions,” said Jeffrey.
“By developing this new machine, which we did from scratch – from paper to commercialisation in 18 months - we will use one third of the people required in traditional hand vaccination teams.
“Because fish are simply fed into the system, anybody can do it - it takes six months to train a hand vaccinator - and we can employ local people in the areas we’re working. It’s been a difficult and expensive way of getting around Covid restrictions, but the unforeseen consequence has been the interest show by producers of other species.”
21,600 fish per hour
A six-channel Inoca system is designed to vaccinate between 15,000 and 21,600 fish per hour, and requires three operators, each of whom feeds fish into two channels.
“The system works on multiples of two channels, so can be built up from two channels to eight, 10 or 12 depending on farmers’ needs,” explained Jeffrey.
The Inoca system can deliver up to three intraperitoneal (IP) injections and one intramuscular (IM) injection to any species of fish at the same rate.
The system also grades fish into three sizes. The operators feeding the fish into the Inoca remove any unwanted stock.
Three versions
Aqualife offered three versions of the machine: the Inoca Salmon, Inoca Fresco and Inoca Oceano.
Inoca Salmo, aimed at the salmon industry, has both IP and IM vaccination capability. Inoca Oceano is aimed at sea water species. Inoca Fresco is the simplest machine delivering one IP injection and is aimed at tilapia and pangasius.
Jeffrey said in 2021 that Aqualife had invested around £1 million in the development of the Inoca and the fully automatic Inocubot and has taken out a loan from the Scottish Government’s UMi Debt Finance Scotland to help fund its work.
