Aquaculture

Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic animals and plants, is the fastest-growing food production sector globally. Aquaculture production already exceeds catches from wild stocks in volume, and further growth is expected. We perform research to support sustainable development of aquaculture through basic and applied research, teaching and collaboration with stakeholders.

Our research includes:

• Circular feed ingredients for the future: their potential and effects on fish, crustaceans and the environment. Examples include microbial and insect proteins, mussels, marine and brewery side streams, and protein concentrates from perennial grasses. Research activities focus on studying fish growth, nutrient digestibility, metabolism, gut health, immunity and microbiota
• Fish feed processing and innovation: developing novel feed formulations, test feed processing and process optimization using extrusion and vacuum coating technology, and evaluating technical pellet quality and effects on fish health. 
• Nutraceuticals, epigenetics and health: exploring feed ingredients with both nutritional and health-beneficial properties, alongside research on epigenetics, trained immunity, nutritional reprogramming and health.
• Aquaculture vaccines: development of novel vaccines and their application technologies across various stages of fish and crustaceans. 
• Environmental benefits and impacts of aquaculture: improving our understanding of how aquaculture interacts with the environment research on improving resource efficiency in feed production.

Our research is conducted through projects, programs and centers in Sweden, across the Nordic countries and globally. 

We have access to internal and external research facilities for experimental work. The Aquatic Facility, optimized for small-scale nutritional trials on cold-water fish. The Feed Technology Laboratory links pilot-scale feed formulation and production with nutritional analysis in our analytical lab and pellet quality testing. Artemia research lab, microalgae lab, fish cell culture, and fish larvae lab provides the state-of-the-art toolboxes for conducting basic and applied research on various areas, including nutrition, health and microbial management, epigenetics and aquaculture bioinformatics. We also work closely in collaboration with Vattenbrukscentrum Norr AB.