LOVUND, NORWAY and ARMONK, N.Y., June 1, 2021 -- With animal welfare, sustainability, and food safety becoming increasingly important for consumers, Nova Sea announced it is joining the Norwegian Seafood Trust, a national seafood tracking network enabled by IBM (NYSE: IBM) Blockchain technology. The Norwegian Seafood Association and Atea last year launched the network, which allows fish farming companies to share data from the entire life cycle of the salmon to consumers all over the world.

The Norwegian Seafood Trust network builds supplier and consumer trust in the supply chain by creating a permanent, immutable and digitized chain of transactions. This way, feed manufacturers, fish farmers, distributors and retailers can all access comprehensive product data in near real-time. Each member of the chain can also download and use an app to scan each salmon lot at each point of receipt.

Nova Sea is one of the largest northern Norwegian producers of salmon and has locations along the entire coast of Helgeland in Norway. Bjørn Olvik, Sales Director at Nova Sea, points to the company's desire to use innovative technology to strengthen its position towards consumers.

"We see that consumers are increasingly demanding more transparency about the products they consume,” Olvik said. “They prefer to eat healthy and safe foods, which are produced in a sustainable way. By documenting and sharing data about how the fish have been raised, what it has eaten, what kind of water quality they live in and how the fish makes it to the dinner table, consumers will have more insight and confidence in the quality of food they eat.”

Innovative technology as enabler

Ever since Nova Sea was founded 50 years ago, principles such as honesty, ethical business practices, sustainability and fish welfare have been key pillars for the northern Norwegian fish farming company. Now the technology and the tracking network are enabling Nova Sea to share information across the production pipeline more easily.

“We are proud of our product, our company and our business operations. Information we now share is information we have always had, but now it is made available to the consumer in a completely new way,” Olvik said. “Technology gives us unprecedented opportunities to be transparent and share the entire journey of our sustainably raised fish. The initiative contributes to a stronger relationship with consumers, while at the same time making the industry as a whole more transparent, open and credible.”

Meeting the industry's global challenges

Espen Braathe, head of IBM Food Trust Europe, states that blockchain technology helps the industry meet the industry’s and consumers´ need for documentation:

"Over time, the industry has been challenged to put in place good documentation systems that tells us all about the food we eat. Blockchain technology enables this type of tracking and digitization of data in a secured and easy way," Braathe said.

For the technology company Atea, the seafood network is important and they believe that tracking should be a future standard for the second largest industry in Norway:

"We want this to be a standard for Norwegian salmon producers, and all participants in the value chain, so that we all know that the data is genuine, reliable and transparent. This also ensures a more sustainable food production at all levels, said Michael Jacobs, CEO of Atea Norway. 

Robert Eriksson, CEO of Norwegian Seafood Association and Norwegian Seafood Trust AS, also believes that there are increased expectations from the market to document sustainability in production:

"The market and consumers are increasingly concerned with clean and environmentally friendly salmon. Therefore, expectations of documentation of sustainable production also increases. The fact that this is now possible will strengthen the brand and reputation of Norwegian salmon," Eriksson said.

Entire value chain represented

"We at Norwegian Seafood Trust are incredibly proud to have brought Nova Sea and BioMar into the tracking network. They help to set the new Norwegian standard for tracking fish and paves the way for all the Norwegian actors within the seafood value chain,” Eriksson said.

The more participants from the salmon industry represented from the value chain, the stronger the ability to share information and validation. BioMar is the first feed manufacturer on the network:

"More and more information is required about the food and fish we eat. This information has not always available to the various actors in the value chain, but now it can be- through new technology and tracking possibilities,” said Vidar Gundersen, Sustainability Manager at BioMar.

About Nova Sea products and traceability:

Nova Sea sells its  products to end consumers through various producers globally and can be found in several major European and US retailers. The producers now have the option of adding a dynamic QR-code to their packaging, to show the end consumer the data of the fish’s journey, through an app. Consumers in central Europe can already find products with the QR code.

About Norwegian Seafood Trust:

Norwegian Seafood Trust is Sjømatbedriftenes´ major investment in tracking. Norwegian Seafood Trust, together with technology companies Atea and IBM, offers a tracking service that follows the entire value chain of the fish, from the egg hatching, to the fish going into the cage, being slaughtered, transported, processed and sold.

IBM Food Trust provides a highly secured network to facilitate the permission-based sharing of all relevant data, certificates and documentation of the lifecycle of the salmon and stores it in an immutable form on the blockchain. This allows it to be more effectively shared with various members of the supply chain such as suppliers, government agencies or importers. Each participant in the network determines how their data is accessed and shared among other members of the network.

Atea, a leading provider of IT infrastructure solutions in the Nordic and Baltic region, works as the technology systems integrator and operator of the network. 

Media Contact: 

IBM Communications
Benedicte Borchgrevink
Benedicte.Borchgrevink@ibm.com