AquaGen completed its world-class full-cycle salmon facility, Profunda, in Barstadvik in Ørsta municipality, Norway. The company selected this area to build its broodstock and egg production facility due to the unique water source from the mountains in the area and its high quality, giving Profunda unique biosafety and good production conditions. The plant will have a production capacity of up to 80-100 million eggs per year and will be an important contribution to AquaGen's total production in Norway.

Profunda has since the beginning been based on marine groundwater wells with very good water quality and biosafety. The well capacity has been expanded after AquaGen bought the plant in 2016, and groundwater wells for freshwater have also been established. The plant is a combination of flow-through and RAS and has an efficient energy system to be able to control the development of smolts, broodstock and eggs with different water temperatures. 

Many steps have also been taken to increase production safety at the plant, with redundancy in critical stages. The plant can produce top genetic products adapted to both land-based and sea-based salmon production.

“The customers are primarily fish farming companies in Norway, but we are working to get export licenses in place. The most comprehensive certification program applies to the EU, which has a time frame of two years after a clear signal from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. We hope that all desired certifications are in place in 2024,” said AquaGen CEO Nina Santi.

AquaGen has worked closely with turnkey contractor Artec Aqua throughout the project. This is the third facility that Artec Aqua developed for AquaGen, after Steigen and Tingvoll.